EODEKICK    HUDSON 


BY  ^^ 


HENEY  JAMES,  Jr. 


Boston  anti  ^eiu  gork 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN,   &   COMPANY 

THE   RIVERSIDE    PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE 
i  1891 


f'' 


//V/// 


RODERICK    HUDSON 


Rowland  Mallet  had  made  liis  arrangements  to  sail  for 
Europe  on  the  1st  of  September,  and  having  in  the  in- 
terval a  fortnight  to  spare,  he  determined  to  spend  it  with 
his  cousin  Cecilia,  the  widow  of  a  nephew  of  his  father. 
He  was  urged  by  the  reflection  that  an  affectionate  farewell 
might  help  to  exonerate  him  from  the  charge  of  neglect 
frequently  preferred  by  this  lady.  It  was  not  that  the 
young  man  disliked  her ;  on  the  contrary  he  regarded  her 
with  a  tender  admiration,  and  he  had  not  forgotten  how 
when  his  cousin  brought  her  home  on  her  marriage 
he  seemed  to  feel  the  upward  sweep  of  the  empty  bough 
from  which  the  golden  fruit  had  been  plucked,  and  y?en 
and  there  accepted  the  prospect  of  bachelorhood.  {  The 
truth  was  that,  as  it  will  be  part  of  the  entertainmefeli.  of 
this  narrative  to  exhibit,  Rowland  Mallet  had  an  un- 
comfortably sensitive  conscience,  and  that,  in  spite  of  the 
seeming  paradox,  his  visits  to  Cecilia  were  rare  because  she 
and  her  misfortunes  were  often  uppermost  in  it./  Her 
misfortunes  were  three  in  number  :  first  she  had  Tost  her 
husband  ;  second  she  had  lost  her  money  (or  the  greater 
part  of  it)  ;  and  third  she  lived  at  Northampton,  Massa- 
chusetts. Mallet's  compassion  was  really  wasted,  because 
Cecilia  was  a  very  clever  woman  and  a  skilful  counter- 
plotter  to  adversity.  She  had  made  herself  a  charming 
home,  her  economies  v/ere  not  obtrusive,  and  there  was 
always  a  cheerful  flutter  in  the  folds  of  her  crape.     It  was 

5 


6  liODEKICK  HUDSON. 

the  consciousness  of  all  this  that  puzzled  Mallet  whenever 
lie  felt  tempted  to  put  in  his  oar.     He  bid  money  and  he 
had  time,  but  he  never  could  decide  just  how  to  place  these 
gifts  gracefully  at  Cecilia's    service.     He    no    longer   felt 
like^  marrying  her;  in  these  eight  years  that  fancy  had  died 
•    a  natural  death.     And  yet  her  extreme  cleverness  seemed 
somehow    to   make    charity    difficult    and    patronage    im- 
possible.    He  would  rather  chop  ofi  his  hand  than  ofi'er 
her  a  cheque,  a  piece  of  useful  furniture,  or  a  black  silk 
dress ;  and  yet  there  was  much  sadness  in  seeing  such  a 
bright    proud    woman    living    in  such  a  small    dull    way. 
^[jCecilia  had  moreover  a  turn  for  sarcasm,  and  her   smile, 
'  which  was  her  pretty  feature,  was  never  so  pretty  as  when 
her  sprightly  phrase  had  a  lurking  scratch  in  it.     Rowland 
remembered  that  for   him    she  was   all    smiles,   and    sus- 
pected awkwardly  that  he  ministered  not  a  little  to  her 
sense    of   the    irony  of   things.  *  And    in    truth,  with  his 
means,   his    leisure    and    his    opportunities,   what    had    he 
done?       He    had    a    lively    suspicion   of    his    uselessness. 
Cecilia   meanwhile    cut    out    her   own    dresses,    and    was 
personally   giving    her    little    girl    the    education    of    a 
princess. 

This  time  however  he  presented  himself  bravely  enough ; 
for  in  the  way  of  activity  it  was  something  definite  at 
least  to  be  going  to  Europe  and  to  be  meaning  to  spend 
the  winter  in  Rome.  Cecilia  met  him  in  the  early  dusk  at 
the  gate  of  her  little  garden,  amid  a  studied  combination 
of  horticultural  odours.  A  rosy  widow  of  twenty-eight, 
half-cousin,  half-hostess,  doing  the  honours  of  a  fragrant 
cottage  on  a  midsummer  evening,  was  a  phenomenon  to 
which  the  young  man's  imagination  was  able  to  do  ample 
justice.  Cecilia  was  always  gracious,  but  this  evening  she 
was  almost  joyous.  She  was  in  a  happy  mood,  and  Mallet 
imagined  there  was  a  private  reason  for  it — a  reason  quite 
distinct  from  her  pleasure  in  receiving  her  honoured  kins- 
man. The  next  day  he  flattered  himself  he  was  on  the 
way  to  discover  it. 

For  the  present,  after  tea,  as  they  sat  on  the  rose-framed 
porch,  while  Rowland  held  his  younger  cousin  between  his 
knees,  and  she,  enjoying  her  situation,  listened  timorously 
for  the  stroke  of  bedtime,  Cecilia  insisted  on  talking  more 
about  her  visitor  than  about  herself. 


KODEEICK  HUDSON  7 

"  What  is  it  you  mean  to  do  in  Europe  ?  "  she  asked 
lightly,  giving  a  turn  to  the  frill  of  her  sleeve — just  such 
a  turn  as  seemed  to  Mallet  to  bring  out  all  the  latent 
difficulties  of  the  question. 

^'  Why,  very  much  what  I  do  here,"  he  answered.  "  No 
great  harm !  " 

"Is  it  true,"  Cecilia  asked,  "  that  here  you  do  no  great 
harm  ?  Is  not  a  man  like  you  doing  harm  when  he  is  not 
doing  positive  good  1 " 

"  Your  compliment  is  ambiguous,"  said  Eowland. 

"No,"  answered  the  widow,  "you  know  what  I  think 
of  you.  You  have  a  turn  for  doing  nice  things  and  behav- 
ing yourself  properly.  You  have  it  in  the  first  place  in 
your  character.  You  are  an  amiable  creature.  Ask  Bessie 
if  you  don't  hold  her  more  gently  and  comfortably  than 
any  of  her  other  admirers." 

"  He   holds  me  more    comfortably   than  Mr.  Hudson," 
Bessie  declared  roundly,  - 
>J^     i^^owland,  not   knowing    Mr.    Hudson,    could    but   half 
.i^f  appreciate  the  eulogy,  and  Cecilia  went  on  to  develop  her 
idea.^     "Your   circumstances  in  the  second  place  suggest 
the  idea  of   some  sort  of   social  usefulness.     You  are  in- 
telligent,   you   are  well-informed,   and    your   benevolence, 
if  one  may  call  it  benevolence,  would  be  discriminating. 
.  You  are  rich  and  unoccupied,  so  that  it  might  be  abundant. 
Therefore  I  say  you  are   a    man  to    do  something   on   a 
large  scale.    Bestir  yourself,   dear   Eowland,  or  v/e  may 
be  taught  to  think  that  virtue  herself   is  setting  a  bad 
example." 

"  Heaven  forbid,"  cried  Rowland,  "  that  I  should  set 
the  examples  of  virtue  !  I  am  quite  willing  to  follow  them 
however,  and  if  I  don't  do  something  on  the  grand  scale  it 
is  that  my  genius  is  altogether  imitative  and  that  I  have 
not  recentjyi  encountered  any  very  striking  models  of 
grandeur.  5  Pray  what  shall  I  do?  Found  an  orphan 
asylum  or  Build  a  dormitory  for  Harvard  College  1  1  am 
not  rich  enough  to  do  either  in  an  ideally  handsome  way, 
and  I  confess  that  yet  a  while  I  feel  too  young  to  strike  my 
grcmd  coup.  1  am  holding  myself  roady  for  inspiration. 
I  am  waiting  till  something  takes  my  fancy  irresistibly. 
If  inspiration  comes  at  forty,  it  will  be  a  hundred  pities  to 
have  tied  up  my  money-bag  at  thirty." 


8  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"AVell,  I  give  you  till  forty,"  said  Cecilia.  "It's  only 
a  word  to  the  wise — a  notification  that  you  are  expected 
not  to  run  your  course  without  having  done  something 
handsome  for  your  fellow-men." 

Nine  o'clock  sounded,  and  Bessie  with  each  stroke  courted 
a  closer  embrace.     But  a  single  winged  word  from  her 
mother   overleaped    her   successive   intrenchments.       She 
turned  and  kissed  her  cousin  and  deposited  an  irrepres- 
sible tear  on  his  moustache.     Then  she  went  and  said  her 
prayers   to   her   mother;  it   was   evident    she   was    being 
admirably  brought  up.     RoAvland  with  the  permission  of 
his  hostess  lighted  a  cigar  and  puffed  it  a  while  in  silence. 
Cecilia's    interest   in   his    career    seemed    very   agreeable. 
That  Mallet  was  without  vanity  I  by  no  means  intend  U' 
affirm  ;  but  there  had  been  times  when,  seeing  him  accept 
hardly  less  deferentially  advice  even  more  peremptory  than 
the  widow's,   you   might   have   asked  yourself  what  had 
become  of  his  vanity.     ISTow,  in  the  sweet-smelling  star- 
light   he    felt    gently   wooed    to    egotism.      There  was    a 
project  connected  with  his  going  abroad  which  it  was  on 
his  tongue's  end  to  communicate.     It  had  no  relation  to 
hospitals  or  dormitories,  and  yet  it  would  have  sounded 
very  generous.      But  it  was  not  because  it  would  have 
sounded  generous  that  poor  Mallet  at  last  puffed  it  away 
in  the  fumes  of  his  cigar.     Useful  though  it  might  be,  it 
expressed  most  imperfectly  the  young  man's  own  personal 
conception  of  usefulness.    [He  was  extremely  fond  of  all 
the  arts,  and  he  had  an  almost  passionate  enjoyment  of 
pictures.     He  had  seen  a  great  many,  and  he  judged  them 
sagaciously.      It   had  occurred    to  him  some   time  before 
that  it  would  be  the  work  of  a  good  citizen  to  go  abroard 
and    with   all    expedition   and    secrecy    purchase    ceri^in 
valuable  specime?is  of  the  Dutch  and  Italian  schools  as  to 
which  he  had  received  private  proposals,  and  then  present 
his  treasures  out  of  hand  to  an  American  city,  not  unknown 
to  resthetie  fame,  in  which  at  that  time  there  prevailed  a 
good   deal  of  fruitless  aspiration  toward  an  art-museum. 
He  had  seen  himself  in  imagination,  more  than  once,  in 
some  mouldy  old  saloon  of  a  Florentine  palace,  turning 
toward  the  deep  embrasure  of  the  window  some  scarcely- 
faded  Ghirlandaio  or  Botticelli,  while  a  host  in  reduced 
circumstances  pointed  out  the  lovely  drawing  of  a  hand. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  9 

But  he  imparted  none  of  these  visions  to  Cecilia,  and  he 
suddenly  swept  them  away  with  the  declaration  that  he 
was  of  course  an  idle  useless  creature,  and  that  he  should 
probably  be  even  more  so  in  Europe  than  at  home.  "  The 
only  thing  is,"  he  said,  "that  there  I  shall  seem  to  be 
doing  something.  I  shall  be  better  entertained  and  shall 
be  therefore,  I  suppose,  in  a  better  humour  with  life.  You 
"may  say  that  that  is  just  the  humour  a  useless  man  should 
keep  out  of.  He  should  cultivate  discontent.  I  did  a  good 
many  things  when  I  was  in  Europe  before,  but  I  did  not 
spend  a  winter  in  Rome.  Every  one  assures  me  that  this 
is  a  peculiar  refinement  of  bliss  ;  most  people  talk  about 
Home  in  the  same  way.  It  is  evidently  only  a  sort  of 
idealized  form  of  loafing  :  a  passive  life  in  Rome,  thanks 
to  the  number  and  the  quality  of  one's  impressions,  takes 
on  a  very  respectable  likness  to  activity.  It  is  still  lotus- 
eating,  only  A^ou  sit  down  at  table  and  the  lotuses  are 
served  up  on  rococo  china.  It's  all  very  well,  but  I  have 
a  distinct  prevision  of  this — that  if  Roman  life  doesn't  do 
something  substantial  to  make  you  happier,  it  increases 
tenfold  your  liability  to  moral  misery.  It  seems  to  me  a 
rash  thing  for  a  sensitive  soul  deliberately  to  cultivate  its 
sensibilities  by  rambling  too  often  among  the  ruins  of  the 
Palatine  or  riding  too  often  in  the  shadow  of  the  crumbling 
aqueducts.  In  such  recreations  the  chords  of  feeling  grow 
tense,  and  after-life,  to  spare  your  intellectual  nerves,  must 
play  upon  them  with  a  touch  as  dainty  as  the  tread  of 
Mignon  when  she  danced  her  egg-dance."^ 

"  I  should  have  said,  my  dear  Rowland,"  said  Cecilia, 
with  a  laugh,  "that  your  nerves  were  tough — that  youv 
eggs  were  hard  !  " 

"  That  being  stupid,  you  mean,  I  might  be  happy  % 
Upon  my  word  I  am  not  happy  !  I  am  clever  enough  to 
want  more  than  I  have  got.  I  am  tired  of  myself,  my  own 
thoughts,  my  own  affairs,  my  own  eternal  company.  True 
happiness,  we  are  told,  consists  in  getting  out  of  one's  self ; 
but  the  point  is  not  only  to  get  out^you  must  stay  out ; 
and  to  stay  out  you  must  have  some  absorbing  errand. 
Unfortunately  I  have  no  errand,  and  nobody  will  trust  me 
with  one.  I  want  to  care  for  something  or  for  somebody. 
And  I  want  to  care  with  a  certain  ardour  ;  even,  if  you 
can  believe  it,  with  a  certain  passion.     I  can't  jnst  now 


10  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

foel  ardent  and  passionate  p.hout  a  hospital  or  a  dormitory. 
£TDo  you  know  I  f-ometimes  think  that  I  am  a  man  of 
genins,  half  finished  1  The  genius  has  been  left  out,  the 
faculty  of  expression  is  wanting ;  but  the  need  for  expres- 
sion remains,  find  I  spend  my  days  groping  for  the  latch  of 
a  closed  door/j' 

"  What  an  immense  number  of  words,"  said  Cecilia  after 
a  pause,  "  to  say  you  want  to  fall  in  love  !  I  have  no 
doubt  5'ou  have  as  good  a  genius  for  that  as  any  one,  if  you 
would  only  trust  it." 

"  Of  course  I  have  thought  of  that,  and  I  assure  you  I 
hold  myself  ready.  But  evidently  I  am  not  inflammable. 
Is  there  in  Northampton  some  perfect  epitome  of  the 
graces  1  " 

"  Of  the  graces  ?  "  said  Cecilia,  raising  her  eyebrows  and 
suppressing  too  distinct  a  consciousness  of  being  herself  a 
rosy  embodiment  of  several.  "  The  household  virtues  are 
better  represented.  There  are  some  excellent  girls,  and 
there  are  two  or  three  very  pretty  ones.  I  will  have  them 
here  one  by  one  to  ten.,  if  you  like." 

"  I  shovJd  particularly  like  it ;  especially  as  I  should 
give  you  a  chance  to  see  by  the  profundity  of  my  attention 
that  if  I  am  not  happy  it's  not  for  want  of  taking  pains." 
Cecilia  was  silent  a  moment ;  and  then,  "  On  the 
whole,"  she  resumed,  ''  I  don't  think  there  are  any  worth 
asking.  There  are  non,e  so  very  pretty,  none  so  very 
pleasing." 

"  Are  you  very  sure  1  "  asked  the  young  man,  rising  and 
throwing  away  his  cigar-end. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  cried  Cecilia,  "  one  would  suppose  I 
wished  to  keep  you  for  myself  !  Of  course  I  am  sure ! 
But  as  the  penalty  of  your  insinuations,  I  shall  invite  the 
plainest  and  proriest  damsel  that  can  be  found  and  leave 
you  alone  with  her." 

Eowland  smiled.  "  Even  against  her,"  he  said,  "  I  should 
be  sorry  to  conclude  until  I  had  given  her  my  respectful 
attention."  / 

This  little  profession  of  ideal  chivalry  (which  closed  the 
conversation)  was  not  quite  so  fanciful  on  Mallet's  lips  as  it 
would  have  been  on  those  of  many  another  man  ;  as  a 
rapid  glance  at  jus  antecedents  may  help  to  make  the 
reader  perceive.     His  life  had  been  a  singular  mixture  of 


EODEKICK  HUDSON.  11 

the  rough  and  the  smooth.  He  had  sprung  from  a  rigid 
Puritan  stock,  and  had  been  brought  up  to  think  much  more 
intently  of  the  duties  of  this  life  than  of  its  privileges  and 
pleasures.  His  progenitors  had  submitted  in  the  matter  of 
dogmatic  theology  to  the  relaxing  influences  of  recent  years  ; 
but  if  Rowland's  youthful  consciousness  was  not  chilled 
by  the  menace  of  long  punishment  for  brief  transgression, 
he  had  at  least  been  made  to  feel  that  there  ran  through 
all  things  a  strain  of  right  and  of  wrong  as  different  after 
all  in  their  complexion  asjhe  texture  to  the  spiritual  sense 
of  Sundays  and  week-days.     His  father  was  a  chip  of  the 

^primal  Puritan  block,  a  man  with  an  icy  smile  and  a  stony 
frown.  He  had  always  bestowed  on  his  son,  on  principle, 
more  frowns  than  smiles,  and  if  the  lad  had  not  been  turned 
to  stone  himself  it  was  because  nature  had  blessed  him 
inwardly  with  a  well  of  vivifying  waters.  Mrs.  Mallet  had 
been  a  Miss  Rowland,  the  daughter  of  a  retired  sea-captain 
once  famous 'on  the  ships  that  sailed  from  Salem  and  New- 
buryport.  He  had  brought  to  port  many  a  ♦jargo  which 
crowned  the  edifice  of  fortunes  already  almost  colossal, 
but  he  had  also  done  a  little  sagacious  trading  on  his  own 
account,  and  he  was  able  to  retire,  prematurely  for  so 
seaworthy  a  maritime  organism,  upon  a  pension  of  his 
own  providing.  He  was  to  be  seen  for  a  year  on  the 
Salem  wharves,  smoking  the  best  tobacco  and  contemplating 
the  seaward  horizon  with  an  inveteracy  which  superficial 
minds  interpreted  as  a  sign  of  repentance.  At  last,  one 
evening,  he  disappeared  beneath  it,  as  he  had  often  done 
before ;  this  time  however  not  as  a  commissioned  navigator, 
but  simply  as  an  amateur  of  an  observing  turn  likely  to 
prove  oppressive  to  the  officer  in  command  of  the  vessel. 

.  Five  months  later  his  place  at  home  knew  him  again,  and 
made  the  acquaintance  also  of  a  handsome,  light-coloured 
young  woman,  of  redundant  contour,  speaking  a  foreign 
tongue.  The  foreign  tongue  proved  after  much  conflicting 
research  to  be  the  idiom  of  Amsterdam,  and  the  young 
woman,  which  was  stranger  still,  to  be  Captain  Rowland's 
wife.  Why  he  had  gone  forth  so  suddenly  across  the  seas 
to  marry  her,  what  had  happened  between  them  before, 
and  whether — though  it  was  of  questionable  propriety  for 
a  good  citizen  to  espouse  a  young  person  of  mysterious 
origin  who   did   her  hair  in  fantastically  elaborate  plaits 


12  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

and  in  whoso  appearance  "  figure  "  enjoyod  such  striking 
predominance — he  would  not  have  had  a  heavy  weight  on 
his  conscience  if  he  had  remained  an  irresponsible  bachelor; 
these  questions  and  many  others  bearing  with  varying 
degrees  of  immediacy  on  the  subject  were  much  propounded 
but  scantily  answered,  and  this  history  need  not  be  charged 
with  resolving  them.  Mrs.  Rowland,  for  so  handsome  a 
woman,  proved  a  tranquil  neighbour  and  an  excellent 
housewife.  Her  extremely  fresh  complexion  however  was 
always  suffused  with  an  air  of  apathetic  homesickness,  and 
she  played  her  part  in  American  society  chiefly  by  having 
the  little  squares  of  brick  pavement  in  front  of  her  dwelling 
scoured  and  polished  as  nearly  as  possible  into  the  likeness 
of  Dutch  tiles.  Rowhmd  Mallet  remembered  having  seen 
her  as  a  child — an  immensely  stout  white-faced  lady,  wear- 
ing a  high  cap  of  very  stiil  tulle,  speaking  English  with 
a  formidable  accent  and  suffering  from  dropsy.  Captain 
Rowland  was  a  little  bronzed  and  wizened  man,  with 
eccentric  opinions.  He  advocated  the  creation  of  a  public 
promenade  along  the  sea,  with  arbours  and  little  green 
tables  for  the  consumption  of  beer,  and  a  platform,  sur- 
rounded by  Chinese  lanterns,  for  dancing.  He  especially 
desired  the  town  Library  to  be  opened  on  Sundays ;  though 
as  he  never  entered  it  on  week-days  it  was  easy  to  turn  the 
proposition  into  ridicule.  Therefore  if  Mrs.  Mallet  was  a 
woman  of  an  exquisite  moral  tone  it  was  not  that  she  had 
inherited  her  temper  from  an  ancestry  with  a  turn  for 
casuistry.  Jonas  Mallet  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  was 
conducting  with  silent  shrewdness  a  small  unpromising 
business.  Both  his  shrewdness  and  his  silence  increased 
with  his  years,  and  at  the  close  of  his  life  he  was  an 
extremely  well-dressed,  well-brushed  gentleman  with  a 
frigid  grey  eye,  who  said  little  to  anybody,  but  of  whom 
everybody  said  that  he  had  a  very  handsome  fortune.  He 
was  not  a  sentimental  father,  and  the  roughness  I  just  now 
spoke  of  in  Rowland's  life  dated  from  his  early  boyhood. 
Mr.  Mallet  whenever  he  looked  at  his  son  felt  extreme 
compunction  at  having  made  a  fortune.  He  remembered 
that  the  fruit  had  not  dropped  ripe  from  the  tree  into 
his  own  mouth,  and  he  determined  it  should  be  no  fault 
of  his  if  the  boy  were  corrupted  by  luxury.  Rowland 
therefore,  except  for   a  good   deal   of  expensive   instruc- 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  13 

tion  in  foreign  tongues  and  abstruse  sciences,  received  the 
education  of  a  poor  man's  son.  His  fare  was  plain,  his 
temper  familiar  with  the  discipline  of  patched  trousers, 
and  his  habits  marked  by  an  exaggerated  simplicity  which 
was  kept  up  really  at  great  expense.  He  was  banished  to 
the  country  for  months  together,  in  the  midst  of  servants 
who  had  str:'ct  injunctions  to  see  that  he  suffered  no  serious 
harm,  but  were  as  strictly  forbidden  to  wait  upon  him.  ';As 
no  school  cculd  be  found  conducted  on  principles  suificiehXiy 
rigorous,  he  was  attended  at  home  by  a  master  who  set  a 
high  ]rice  on  the  understanding  that  he  was  to  illustrate 
the  boauty  of  abstinence,  not  only  by  precept  but  by 
example?]  Rowland  passed  for  a  child  of  ordinary  parts, 
and  certainly,  during  his  younger  years,  was  an  excellent 
imitation  of  a  boy  who  had  inherited  nothing  whatever 
that  was  to  m.ake  life  easy.  He  was  passive,  pliable,  frank, 
extremely  slow  at  his  books,  and  inordinately  fond  of  trout- 
fishing.  His  hair,  a  memento  of  his  Dutch  ancestry,  was 
of  the  fairest  shade  of  yellow,  his  complexion  absurdly 
rosy,  and  the  measurement  of  the  waist,  when  he  was  about 
ten  years  old,  quite  alarmingly  large.  This  however  was 
but  an  episode  in  his  growth;  he  became  afterwards  a 
fresh-coloured,  yellow-bearded  man,  but  he  was  never 
accused  of  anything  more  awkward  than  a  manly  round- 
ness. He  emerged  from  childhood  a  simple,  wholesome, 
round- eyed  lad,  with  no  suspicion  that  a  less  roundabout 
course  might  have  been  taken  to  make  him  happy,  but  with 
a  vague  sense  that  his  young  experience  was  not  a  fair 
simple  of  human  freedom,  and  that  he  was  to  make  a  great 
many  discoveries.  When  he  was  about  fifteen  he  achieved 
a  momentous  one.  He  ascertained  that  his  mother  was 
a  saint.  She  had  always  been  a  very  vivid  presence  in  his 
life,  but  so  intensely  gentle  a  one  that  his  sense  was  fully 
opened  to  it  only  by  the  danger  of  losing  her.  She  had 
an  illness  which  for  many  months  was  liable  at  any 
moment  to  terminate  fatally,  and  during  her  long-arrested 
convalescence  she  removed  the  mask  which  she  had  worn 
for  years  by  her  husband's  order.  Rowland  spent  his  days 
at  her  side  and  felt  before  long  as  if  he  had  made  a  new 
friend.  All  his  impressions  at  this  period  were  commented 
upon  and  interpreted  at  leisure  in  the  future,  and  it  was 
only  then  that  he  understood  that  his  mother  had  been  for 


14  IIUDEKICK  HUDSON. 

fifteen  years  a  singularly  imhapjty  woman.     Her  marriage 
had  been  an  immitigable  error  which  she  had  spent  her  life 
in  trying  to  look  in  the  face.    She  found  nothing  to  oppose 
to    her    husband's  rigid   and  consistent  will  but   the   ap- 
pearance of  absohico  compliance  ;  her  courage  sank,  and 
she  lived  for  a  while  in  a  sort  of  spiritual  torpor.      But  at 
last,  as  her  child   emerged  from  babyhood,  she  began  to 
feel  a  certain  charm  in  patience,  to  discover  the  uses  of 
ingenuity    and   to  learn  that  somehow  or  other    one   can 
always  arrange  one's  life.     She  cultivated  from  this  time 
forward  a  little  private  plot  of  sentiment,  and  it  was  of 
this  secluded  precinct  that  before  her  death  she  gave  her 
son  the  key.     Rowland's  allowance  at  college  was  barely 
sufficient   to   maintain    him    decently,    and  as  soon  as  he 
graduated  he  was  taken  into  his  father's  counting-house 
to  do  small  drudgery  on  a  proportionate  salary.     For  three 
years  he  earned  his  living  as  regularly  as  the  obscure  func- 
tionary in  fustian  who  swept  out  the  place.     Mr.  Mallet 
was  consistent,  but  the  perfection  of  his  consistency  was 
known  only  on  his  death.     He    left    but    a   third  of   his 
property  to  his  son,  and  devoted  the  remainder  to  various 
public  institutions  and   local  charities.     Eowland's  third 
was  a  very  easy  competence,  and  he  never  felt  a  moment's 
jealousy  of   his  fellow-pensioners ;    but  w^hen  one  of  the 
Gv-^.tablishments  which  had  figured  most  advantageously  in 
his  father's  w^ill  bethought  itself  to  affirm  the  existence  of  a 
later  instrument  in  which  it  had  been  still  more  handsomely 
treated,  the  young  man  felt  a  sudden  passionate  need  to 
repel  the  claim  by    process  of  law.     There  was  a  lively 
tussle,  but  he  gained  his  case  ;  immediately  after  which  he 
made  in  another  (juarter  a  donation  of  the  contested  sum. 
He  cared  nothing  for  the  money,  but  he  had  felt  an  angry 
desire  to  protest  against  a  destiny  which  seemed  determined 
to    be   exclusively  salutary.      It    seemed   to  him  that  he 
should  bear  a  little  spoiling.     And  yet  he  treated  himself 
to  a  very  modest  quantity,  and  submitted  without  reserve 
to  the  great  national  discipline  which  began  in  1861.  AVhen 
the  Civil  "War  broke  out  he  immediately  obtained  a  com- 
mission, and  he  did  his  duty  for  three  long  years  as  a  citizen 
soldier.     His  duty  was  obscure,  but  he  never  lost  a  certain 
private  satisfaction  in  remembering  that  on  two  or  three 
occasions  it  had  been  performed  with  something  of  an  ideal 


EODEEICK  HUDSON.  •       15 

precision.  He  had  disentangled  himself  from  business,  and 
after  the  war  he  felt  a  profound  disinclination  to  tie  the 
knot  again.  He  had  no  desire  to  make  money,  he  had  money 
enough ;  and  although  he  knew,  and  was  frequently  re- 
minded, that  a  young  man  is  the  better  for  a  fixed  occupation, 
he  could  discover  no  moral  advantage  in  driving  a  lucra- 
tive trade.  Yet  few  young  men  of  means  and  leisure  ever 
made  less  of  a  parade  of  idleness,  and  indeed  idleness  in 
any  degree  could  hardly  be  laid  at  the  door  of  a  young  man 
who  took  life  in  the  serious,  attentive,  reasoning  fashion  of 
our  friend.  It  often  seemed  to  Mallet  that  he  wholly 
lacked  the  prime  requisite  of  a  graceful  J!  dneur — the  simple, 
sensuous,  confident  relish  of  pleasure.  He  had  frequent  fits 
of  extreme  melancholy,  in  which  he  declared  that  he  was 
neither  fish  nor  flesh  nor  good  red  herring.  I  His  was 
neither  an  irresponsibly  contemplative  nature  nor  a 'sturdily 
practical  one,  and  he  was  for  ever  looking  in  vain  for  the 
uses  of  the  things  that  please  and  the  charm  of  the  things 
that  sustain.  He  was  an  awkward  mixture  of  moral  and 
aesthetic  curiosity,  and  yet  he  would  have  made  an  ineffective 
reformer  and  an  indifferent  artist.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
the  glow  of  happiness  must  be  found  either  in  action  of 
some  immensely  solid  kind  on  behalf  of  an  idea,  or  in  pro- 
ducing a  masterpiece  in  one  of  the  arts.  Oftenest  perhaps 
he  wished  he  were  a  vigorous  young  man  of  genius  without 
a  penny.  As  it  was,  he  could  only  buy  pictures  and  not 
paint  them ;  and  in  the  way  of  action  he  had  to  content 
himself  with  making  a  rule  to  render  scrupulous  justice  to 
fine  strokes  of  behaviour  in  others.  On  the  whole,  he  had 
an  incorruptible  modest}^  With  his  blooming  complexion 
and  his  quiet  grey  eye,  he  felt  the  friction  of  existence 
more  than  was  suspected  ;  but  he  asked  no  allowance  on 
grounds  of  temper,  he  assumed  that  fate  had  treated  him 
inordinately  well  and  that  he  had  no  excuse  for  taking  an 
ill-natured  view  of  life,  and  he  undertook  to  believe  that  all 
women  were  fair,  all  men  were  brave,  and  the  world  was  a 
delightful  place  of  sojourn,  until  the  contrary  should  be 
distinctly  proved. 

Cecilia's  blooming  garden  and  shady  porch  had  seemed 
so  friendly  to  repose  and  a  cigar  that  she  reproached  him 
the  jiext  morning  with  indifference  to  her  little  parlour, 
not  less  in  its  way  a  monument  to  her  ingenious  taste. 


16  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"And  by  the  way,"  she  added  as  he  followed  her  in,  "if 
I  refused  |abt  night  to  show  you  a  pretty  girl,  I  can  at 
least  show  you  a  pretty  boy." 

She  threw  open  a  window  and  pointed  to  a  statuette 
which  occupied  a  place  of  honour  among  the  ornaments  of 
the  room.  Kowland  looked  at  it  a  moment  and  then 
turned  to  her  with  an  exclamation  of  surprise.  She  gave 
him  a  rapid  glance,  perceived  that  her  statuette  was  of 
altogether  exceptional  merit,  and  then  smiled  knowingly, 
as  if  this  were  a  familiar  idea. 

"  Who  did  it  1  w^here  did  you  get  it  ?  "  Rowland 
demanded. 

**  Oh,"  said  Cecilia,  adjusting  the  light,  "  it's  a  little 
thing  of  Mr.  Hudson's." 

*'  And  who  the  deuce  is  Mr.  Hudson  1  "  asked  Rowland. 
But  he  was  absorbed  ;  he  lost  her  immediate  reply.  The 
statuette,  in  bronze,  something  more  than  two  feet  high, 
represented  a  naked  youth  drinking  from  a  gourd.  The 
attitude  was  perfectly  simple.  The  lad  was  squarely 
planted  on  his  feet,  with  his  legs  a  little  apart ;  his  back 
was  slightly  hollowed,  his  head  thrown  back  ;  his  hands 
were  raised  to  support  the  rustic  cup.  There  was  a  loosened 
fillet  of  wild  flowers  about  his  head,  and  his  eyes,  under 
their  dropped  lids,  looked  straight  into  the  cup.  On  the 
base  was  scratched  the  Greek  word  Aixpa,  Thirst.  The 
figure  might  have  been  some  beautiful  youth  of  ancient 
fable — Hylas  or  Narcissus,  Paris  or  Endymion.  Its  beauty 
was  the  beauty  of  natural  movement ;  nothing  had  been 
sought  to  be  represented  but  the  perfection  of  an  attitude. 
This  had  been  attentively  studied — it  was  exquisitely  ren- 
dered. Rowland  demanded  more  light,  dropped  his  head 
on  this  side  and  that,  uttered  vague  exclamations.  He 
said  to  himself,  as  he  had  said  more  than  once  in  the 
Louvre  and  the  Vatican,  '*  We  ugly  mortals,  what  beauti- 
ful creatures  we  are  !  "  ISfothing  in  a  long  time  had  given 
Tiim  so  much  pleasure.  "  Hudson — Hudson,"  he  asked 
again  ;  "  who  is  Hudson  1  " 

"  A  young  man  of  this  place,"  said  Cecilia. 

"  A  young  man  1     How  old  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  he  is  three  or  four  and  twenty." 

"  Of  this  place,  you  say — of  Northampton,  Massachu- 
setts ]  " 


RODEKICK  HUDSON.  17 

"  He  lives  here,  but  he  comes  from  Virginia." 

"  Is  he  a  sculptor  by  profession  1  " 

"  He  is  a  law-student." 

Rowland  burst  out  laughing.  "  He  has  found  something 
in  Blackstone  that  I  never  did.  He  makes  statues  then 
simply  for  his  pleasure  ?  " 

Cecilia,  with  a  smile,  gave  a  little  toss  of  her  head. 
"  For  mine  !  " 

"  I  congratulate  you,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  wonder 
whether  he  could  be  induced  to  do  anything  for  me  ?  " 

"  This  was  a  matter  of  friendship.  I  saw  the  figure 
when  he  had  modelled  it  in  clay,  and  of  course  I  greatly 
admired  it.  He  said  nothing  at  the  time,  but  a  week  ago, 
on  my  birthday,  he  arrived  in  a  buggy,  with  this  affair. 
He  had  had  it  cast  at  the  foundry  at  Chicopee  ;  I  believe 
it's  a  beautiful  piece  of  bronze.  He  begged  me  to 
accept." 

"  Upon  my  word,"  said  Mallet,  "  he  does  things  hand- 
somely !  "  and  he  fell  to  admiring  the  statue  again. 

"  So  then,"  said  Cecilia,  "  it's  very  remarkable  1  " 

"Why,  my  dear  cousin,"  Rowland  answered,  "Mr. 
Hudson  of  Virginia  is  an  extraordinary — "  Then  sud- 
denly stopping — "Is  he  a  great  friend  of  yours  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  A  great  friend  1 "  and  Cecilia  hesitated.  "  I  regard 
him  as  a  child  !  " 

"  Well,"  said  Rowland,  "  he's  a  very  clever  child  !  Tell 
me  something  about  him;  I  should  like  to  see  him." 

Cecilia  was  obliged  to  go  to  her  daughter's  music-lesson, 
but  she  assured  Rowland  that  she  would  arrange  for  him 
a  meeting  with  the  young  sculptor.  He  was  a  frequent 
visitor,  and  as  he  had  not  called  for  some  days  it  was 
likely  he  would  come  that  evening.  Rowland,  left  alone, 
examined  the  statuette  at  his  leisure  and  returned  more 
than  once  during  the  day  to  take  another  look  at  it.  He 
discovered  its  weak  points,  but  it  wore  well.  It  had  the 
stamp  of  genius.  Rowland  envied  the  happy  youth  who, 
in  a  New  England  village,  without  aid  or  encouragement, 
without  models  or  examples,  had  found  it  so  easy  to 
produce  a  lovely  work. 


18  RODERICK  HUDSON. 


II. 


In  the  evening,  as  lie  was  smoking  his  cigar  on  the 
verandah,  a  light  quick  step  pressed  the  gravel  of  the 
garden  path,  and  in  a  moment  a  voung  man  made  his  bow 
to  Cecilia.  It  was  rather  a  nod  than  a  bow,  and  indicated 
either  that  he  was  an  old  friend  or  that  he  was  scantily- 
versed  in  the  usual  social  forms.  Cecilia,  who  was  sitting 
noiir  the  steps,  pointed  to  a  neighbouring  chair,  but  the 
young  man  seated  himself  abruptly  on  a  step  at  her  feet 
and  began  to  fan  himself  vigorously  with  his  hat,  breaking 
out  into  a  lively  objurgation  ujDon  the  hot  weather.  "  I'm 
dripping  wet  !  "  he  said,  without  ceremony. 

"  You  walk  too  fast,"  said  Cecilia.  "  You  do  everything 
too  fast." 

"  I  know  it,  I  know  it  !  "  he  cried,  passing  his  hand 
through  his  abundant  dark  hair  and  making  it  stand  out 
in  a  picturesque  shock.  ''I  can't  be  slow  if  I  try.  There's 
something  inside  of  me  that  drives  me.  A  restless 
fiend !  " 

Cecilia  gave  a  light  laugh,  and  Eowland  leaned  forward 
in  his  hammock.  He  had  placed  himself  in  it  at  Bessie's 
request,  and  was  playing  that  he  was  her  baby  and  that 
she  was  rocking  him  to  sleep.  She  sat  beside  him,  swing- 
ing the  hammock  to  and  fro  and  singing  a  lullaby.  When 
he  raised  himself  she  pushed  him  back  and  said  that  the 
baby  must  finish  its  nap.  "  But  I  want  to  see  the  gentle- 
man with  the  fiend  inside  of  him,"  said  Rowland. 

"  \"\Tiat  is  a  fiend  ?  "  Bessie  demanded.  "  It's  only  Mr. 
Hudson." 

"Very  well,  I  want  to  see  him." 

"  Oh,  never  mind  him !  "  said  Bessie,  with  the  brevity 
of  contempt. 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  didn't  like  him." 

"I  don't!  "  Bessie  afiirmed,  putting  Rowland  to  bed 
again. 

The  hammock  was  swung  at  the  end  of  the  verandah, 
in  the   thickest    shade  of   the  climbing   plants,  and    this 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  19 

fragment  of  dialogue  had  passed  unnoticed.  Kowland 
submitted  a  while  longer  to  be  cradled,  and  contented 
himself  with  listening  to  Mr.  Hudson's  voice.  It  was  a 
soft  and  not  altogether  masculine  organ,  and  was  pitched 
on  this  occasion  in  a  somewhat  plaintive  and  pettish  key. 
The  young  man's  mood  seemed  fretful ;  he  complained  of 
the  heat,  of  the  dust,  of  a  shoe  that  hurt  him,  of  having 
gone  on  an  errand  a  mile  to  the  other  side  of  the  town 
and  found  the  person  he  was  in  search  of .  had  left 
Northampton  an  hour  before. 

*'  Won't  you  have  a  cup  of  tea  1 "  Cecilia  asked.  "  Per- 
haps that  will  restore  your  equanimity." 

"  Ay,  by  keeping  me  awake  all  night !  "  said  Hudson. 
"At  the  best,  to  go  down  to  the  office  is  like  getting  into 
a  bath  with  the  water  frozen.  With  my  ni9rves  set  on 
edge  by  a  sleepless  night  I  should  sit  and  shiver  at  home. 
That's  always  charming  for  my  mother." 

"  Your  mother  is  well,  I  hope  1  " 

"  Oh,  she's  as  usual." 

"And  Miss  Garland  T' 

"  She's  as  usual  too.  Every  one,  everything,  is  as  usual. 
Nothing  ever  happens  in  this  benighted  town." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon ;  things  do  happen  sometimes," 
said  Cecilia.  "  Here  is  a  dear  cousin  of  mine  arrived  on 
purpose  to  congratulate  you  on  your  statuette."  And  she 
called  to  Rowland  to  come  and  be  introduced  to  Mr. 
Hudson.  The  young  man  sprang  up  with  alacrity,  and 
Rowland,  coming  forward  to  shake  hands,  had  a  good  look  at 
him  in  the  light  projected  from  the  parlour  window.  Some- 
thing seemed  to  shine  out  of  Hudson's  face  as  a  warning 
against  a  "  compliment  "  of  the  idle  unpondered  sort. 

"  Your  statuette  seems  to  me  very  good,"  Rowland  said 
gravely.     "  It  has  given  me  extreme  pleasure." 

"  And  my  cousin  knows  what  is  good,"  said  Cecilia. 
"  He  is  a  connoisseur." 

Hudson  smiled  and  stared,  "A  connoisseur  ? "  he  cried, 
laughing.  "  He  is  the  first  I  have  ever  seen  !  Let  me  see 
what  they  look  like ; "  and  he  drew  Rowland  nearer  to  the 
light.  "  Have  they  all  such  good  heads  as  that  1  I  should 
like  to  model  yours." 

"  Pray  do,"  said  Cecilia.  "  It  will  keep  him  a  while. 
He  is  running  off  to  Europe." 

B   2 


20  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  Ah,  to  Europe  !  "  Hudson  exclaimed  with  a  melancholy 
cadence  as  thoy  sat  down.      *'  Happy  man  !  " 

But  the  note  seemed  to  llowland  to  be  struck  rather 
at  random,  for  he  perceived  ,.q,o  echo  of  it  in  the  boyish 
garrulity  of  his  later  talk.  Hudson  was  a  tall  slender 
young  fellow,  with  a  singularly  mobile  and  intelligent 
face.  Rowland  was  struck  at  first  only  with  its  respon- 
sive vivacity,  but  in  a  short  time  he  perceived  it  was 
remarkably  handsome.  The  features  were  admirably 
chiselled  and  finished,  and  a  frank  smile  played  over 
them  as  gracefully  as  a  breeze  among  flowers.  The  fault 
of  the  young  man's  whole  structure  was  an  excessive  want 
of  breadth.  The  forehead,  though  it  was  high  and  rounded, 
was  narrow  ;  the  jaw  and  the  shoulders  were  narrow,  and 
the  result  was  an  air  of  insufficient  physical  substance. 
But  Mallet  afterwards  learned  that  this  fair  slim  youth 
could  draw  indefinitely  upon  a  fund  of  nervous  force  which 
outlasted  and  outwearied  the  endurance  of  many  a  sturdier 
temperament.  And  certainly  there  was  life  enough  in  his 
eye  to  furnish  an  immortality  !  It  was  a  generous  dark 
grey  eye,  in  which  there  came  and  went  a  sort  of  kindling 
glow  which  would  have  made  a  ruder  visage  striking,  and 
which  gave  at  times  to  Hudson's  harmonious  face  an  alto- 
gether extraordinary  beauty.'^  There  was  to  Rowland's 
sympathetic  sense  a  slightly  pitiful  disparity  between  the 
young  sculptor's  delicate  countenance  and  the  shabby 
gentility  of  his  costume.  He  was  dressed  for  a  rural 
visit — a  visit  to  a  pretty  woman.  He  was  clad  from 
head  to  foot  in  a  white  linen  suit,  which  had  never  been 
remarkable  for  the  felicity  of  its  cut  and  had  now  quite 
lost  its  vivifying  and  redeeming  crispness.  He  wore  a 
bright  red  cravat,  passed  through  a  ring  altogether  too 
splendid  to  be  valuable  ;  he  pulled  and  twisted,  as  he  sat, 
a  pair  of  yellow  kid  gloves ;  he  emphasized  his  conversation 
with  great  dashes  and  flourishes  of  a  light  silver-tipped 
walking-stick,  and  he  kept  constantly  taking  off  and 
putting  on  one  of  those  slouched  sombreros  which  are 
the  traditional  property  of  the  Virginian  or  Carolinian 
of  romance.  When  his  hat  was  on  he  was  very  picturesque, 
in  spite  of  his  mock  elegance  ;  and  when  it  was  off  and  he 
sat  nursing  it  and  turning  it  about  and  not  knowing  what 
to  do  with  it,  he  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  awkward      He 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  21 

evidently  had  a  natural  relish  for  brilliant  accessories  and 
he  appropriated  what  came  to  his  hand.  This  was  visible 
in  his  talk,  which  abounded  in  the  florid  and  sonorous.  In 
conversation  he  was  a  colourist. 

Rowland,  who  was  but  a  moderate  talker,  sat  by  in 
silence,  while  Cecilia,  who  had  told  him  that  she  desired 
his  opinion  upon  her  friend,  used  a  good  deal  of  character- 
istic finesse  in  leading  the  young  man  to  disclose  himself. 
She  perfectly  succeeded,  and  Hudson  rattled  away  for  an 
hour  with  a  volubility  in  which  boyish  unconsciousness 
and  manly  shrewdness  were  singularly  combined.  He  gave 
his  opinion  on  twenty  topics,  he  opened  up  an  endless  budget 
of  local  gossip,  he  described  his  repulsive  routine  at  the 
office  of  Messrs.  Striker  and  Spooner,  counsellors  at  law, 
and  he  gave  with  great  felicity  and  gusto  an  account  of 
the  annual  boat-race  between  Harvard  and  Yale,  which  he 
had  lately  witnessed  at  Worcester.  He  had  looked  at  the 
straining  oarsmen  and  the  swaying  crowd  Avith  the  eye  of 
the  sculptor.  Rowland  was  a  good  deal  amused  and  not  a 
little  interested.  Whenever  Hudson  uttered  some  peculiarly 
striking  piece  of  youthful  grandiloquence,  Cecilia  broke  into 
a  long,  light,  familiar  laugh. 

"What  are  you  laughing  at?"  the  young  man  then 
demanded.     "  Have  I  said  anything  so  ridiculous  1  " 

"  Go  on,  go  on,"  Cecilia  replied.  "  You  are  too  delicious  ! 
Show  Mr.  Mallet  how  Mr.  Striker  read  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  on  the  4th  of  July." 

Hudson,  like  most  men  with  a  turn  for  the  plastic  arts, 
was  an  excellent  mimic,  and  he  represented  with  a  great  deal 
of  humour  the  accent  and  attitude  of  a  pompous  country 
lawyer  sustaining  the  burden  of  this  glorious  episode  of  our 
national  festival.  The  sonorous  twang,  the  see-saw  gestures, 
the  patriotic  pronunciation,  were  vividly  reproduced.  But 
Cecilia's  manner  and  the  young  man's  quick  response  ruffled 
a  little  poor  Rowland's  paternal  conscience.  He  wondered 
whether  his  cousin  were  not  sacrificing  the  faculty  of 
reverence  in  her  clever  protege  to  her  need  for  amusement. 
Hudson  made  no  serious  rejoinder  to  Rowland's  compli- 
ment on  his  statuette  until  he  rose  to  go.  J>(  'vl:!;l'l 
wondered  whether  he  had  forgotten  it,  and  supr  iiat 
the  oversight  was  a  sign  of  the  natural  self-s  .-'y  '^' 
genius.     But  Hudson  stood  a  moment  before  ]\        id  ',oo(i 


22  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

night,  twirled  his  sombrero  and  hesitated  for  the  first 
time.  He  gave  Rowland  a  clear  penetrating  glance,  and 
then,  with  a  wonderfully  frank  appealing  smile — "  You 
really  meant,"  he  asked,  "  what  you  said  a  while  ago  about 
that  thing  of  mine  1     It  is  good — essentially  good  ?  " 

"  I  really  meant  it,"  said  Rowland,  laying  a  kindly 
hand  on  his  shoulder.  "It  is  very  good  indeed.  It 
is,  as  you  say,  essentially  good."  That  is  the  beauty 
of  it." 

Hudson's  eyes  glowed  and  expanded ;  he  looked  at 
Rowland  for  some  time  in  silence.  "  I  have  a  notion  you 
really  know,"  he  said  at  last.  "But  if  you  don't,  it 
doesn't  much  matter." 

"  My  cousin  asked  me  to-day,"  said  Cecilia,  "whether  I 
supposed  you  knew  yourself  how  good  it  is." 

Hudson  stared,  blushing  a  little.  "  Perhaps  not !  "  he 
cried. 

"  Yery  likely,"  said  Mallet.  "  I  read  in  a  book  the 
other  day  that  great  talent  in  action — in  fact  the  book  said 
genius — is  a  kind  of  somnambulism.  The  artist  performs 
great  feats  in  a  dream.  We  must  not  wake  him  up  lest  he 
should  lose  his  balance." 

"  Oh,  when  he's  back  in  bed  again  !  "  Hudson  answered 
with  a  laugh.  "Yes,  call  it  a  dream.  It  was  a  very 
happy  one !  " 

"  Tell  me  this,"  said  Rowland.  "  Did  you  mean  any- 
thing by  your  young  Water-drinker  ?  Does  he  represent 
an  idea  ?     Is  he  a  symbol  ?  " 

Hudson  raised  his  eyebrows  and  gently  stroked  his 
hair.  "  Why,  he's  youth,  you  know ;  he's  innocence,  he's 
health,  he's  strength,  he's  curiosity.  Yes,  he's  a  good 
many  things." 

"  And  is  the  cup  also  a  symbol  1 " 

"  The  cup  is  knowledge,  pleasure,  experience.  Anything 
of  that  kind!" 

"  Well,  he's  guzzling  in  earnest,"  said  Rowland. 

Hudson  gave  a  vigorous  nod.  "Aye,  poor  fellow,  he's 
thirsty  !  "  And  on  this  he  cried  good  night,  and  bounded 
down  the  garden  path. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  make  of  him  1 "  asked  Cecilia,  re- 
turning a  short  time  afterwards  from  a  visit  of  investigation 
as  to  the  sufficiency  of  Bessie's  bedclothes. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  23 

"  I  confess  I  like  him,"  said  Rowland.  "  He's  crude  and 
immature — but  there's  stuff  in  him." 

"  He's  a  strange  being,"  said  Cecilia  musingly. 

"  Who  are  his  people  ?  what  has  been  his  education  ? " 
Rowland  asked. 

"He  has  had  no  education,  beyond  what  he  has  picked 
up  with  little  trouble  for  himself.  His  mother  is  a  widow, 
of  a  Massachusetts  country  family,  a  little  timid  tremulous 
woman  who  is  always  on  pins  and  needles  about  her  son. 
She  had  some  property  herself  and  married  a  Virginia 
gentleman — an  owner  of  lands  and  slaves.  He  turned  out, 
I  believe,  a  dreadful  rake,  and  made  great  havoc  in  their 
fortune.  Everything,  or  almost  everything,  melted  away, 
including  Mr.  Hudson  himself.  This  is  literally  true,  for 
he  drank  himself  to  death.  Ten  years  ago  his  wife  was 
left  a  widow,  with  scanty  means  and  a  couple  of  growing 
boys.  She  paid  her  husband's  debts  as  best  she  could,  and 
came  to  establish  herself  here,  where  by  the  death  of  a 
charitable  relative  she  had  inherited  an  old-fashioned 
ruinous  house.  Roderick,  our  friend,  was  her  pride  and 
joy ;  but  Stephen,  the  elder,  was  her  comfort  and  support. 
I  remember  him  later ;  he  was  a  plain-faced,  sturdy,  prac- 
tical lad,  very  different  from  his  brother  and  in  his  way  I 
imagine  a  very  fine  fellow.  When  the  war  broke  out  he 
found  that  the  New  England  blood  ran  thicker  in  his  veins 
than  the  Virginian  and  immediately  obtained  a  commission. 
He  fell  in  some  Western  battle  and  left  his  mother  incon- 
solable. Roderick  however  has  given  her  plenty  to  think 
about,  and  she  has  induced  him  by  some  mysterious  art  to 
take  up  a  profession  that  he  abhors  and  for  which  he  is 
about  as  fit  as  I  am  to  drive  a  locomotive.  He  grew  up 
ct  la  grdce  de  Dieu  ;  he  was  horribly  spoiled.  Three  or  four 
years  ago  he  graduated  at  a  small  college  in  this  neighbour- 
hood, where  I  am  afraid  he  had  given  a  good  deal  more 
attention  to  novels  and  billiards  than  to  mathematics  and 
Greek.  Since  then  he  has  been  reading  law  at  the  rate 
of  a  page  a  day.  If  he  is  ever  admitted  to  practice  I  am 
afraid  my  friendship  will  not  avail  to  make  me  give  him 
my  business.  Good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  the  boy  is  an 
artist — an  artist  to  his  fingers'  ends." 

"  Why,  then,"  asked  Rowland,  "  doesn't  he  deliberately 
tak^  up  the  chisel  %  " 


24  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  For  several  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  I  don't  think 
he  more  than  half  suspects  his  talent.  The  flame  is 
smouldering,  but  it  is  never  fanned  by  the  breath  of 
criticism.  He  sees  nothing,  hears  nothing,  to  help  him  to 
self-knowledge.  He  is  hopelessly  discontented,  but  he 
doesn't  know  where  to  look  for  help.  Then  his  mother, 
as  she  one  day  confessed  to  me,  has  a  holy  horror  of  a 
profession  which  consists  exclusively  as  she  supposes  in 
making  figures  of  people  without  their  clothes  on.  Sculp- 
ture to  her  mind  is  an  insidious  form  of  immorality,  and 
for  a  young  man  of  a  passionate  disposition  she  considers 
the  law  a  much  safer  speculation.  Her  father  was  a  judge, 
she  has  two  brothers  at  the  bar,  and  her  elder  son  had 
made  a  very  promising  beginning  in  the  same  line.  She 
wishes  the  tradition  to  be  kept  up.  I  am  pretty  sure  the 
law  won't  make  Roderick's  fortune,  and  I  am  afraid  it  will 
spoil  his  temper." 

"  What  sort  of  a  temper  is  it  1  " 

"  One  to  be  trusted,  on  the  whole.  It  is  quick,  but  it  is 
generous.  I  have  known  it  to  breathe  flame  and  fury  at 
ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  soft  sweet  music  early  on 
the  moiTOW.  It's  a  very  entertaining  temper  to  observe. 
Fortunately  I  can  observe  it  dispassionately,  for  I  am  the 
only  person  in  the  place  he  has  not  quarrelled  with." 

"  Has  he  then  no  society  1  Who  is  Miss  Garland  whom 
you  asked  about?  " 

"  A  young  girl  staying  with  his  mother,  a  sort  of  far- 
away cousin  ;  a  good  plain  girl,  but  not  a  person  to  delight 
a  sculptor's  eye.  Roderick  has  a  good  share  of  the  old 
Southern  arrogance  ;  he  has  the  aristocratic  temperament. 
He  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  small  towns-people ; 
he  says  they  are  '  ignoble.'  He  can't  endure  his  mother's 
friends — the  old  ladies  and  the  ministers  and  the  tea-party 
people  ;  they  bore  him  to  death.  So  he  comes  and  lounges 
here  and  rails  at  everything  and  every  one." 

This  youthful  scofl'er  reappeared  a  couple  of  evenings 
later  and  confirmed  the  friendly  feeling  he  had  excited 
on  Rowland's  part.  He  was  in  an  easier  mood  than 
before,  he  chattered  less  extravagantly,  and  asked  Rowland 
a  number  of  rather  primitive  questions  about  the  condition 
of  the  fine  arts  in  New  York  and  Boston.  Cecilia,  when 
he  had  gone,  said  that  this  was  the  wholesome  effec""  '^^ 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  25 

Bowland's  eulogy  of  his  statuette.  Roderick  was  acutelj 
sensitive,  and  Rowland's  intelligent  praise  had  sobered 
him ;  he  was  ruminating  the  full-flavoured  verdict  of  cul- 
ture. Rowland  took  a  great  fancy  to  him,  to  his  personal 
charm  and  his  probable  genius.  He  had  an  indefinable 
attraction — the  something  tender  and  divine  of  unspotted, 
exuberant,  confident  youth.  The  next  day  was  Sunday, 
and  Rowland  proposed  that  they  should  take  a  long  walk 
and  that  Roderick  should  show  him  the  country.  The 
young  man  assented  gleefully,  and  in  the  morning,  as 
Rowland  at  the  garden  gate  was  giving  his  hostess  God- 
speed on  her  way  to  church,  he  came  striding  along  the 
grassy  margin  of  the  road  and  out-whistling  the  music  of 
the  church  bells.  It  was  one  of  those  lovely  days  of  the 
last  of  August  when  summer  seems  to  balance  in  the  scale 
with  autumn.  "  Remember  the  day,  and  take  care  you  rob 
no  orchards,"  said  Cecilia,  as  they  separated. 

;The  young  men  walked  away  at  a  steady  pace,  over  hill 
and  dale,  through  woods  and  fields,  and  at  last  found 
themselves  on  a  grassy  elevation  studded  with  mossy 
rocks  and  red  cedars.  Just  beneath  them,  in  a  great 
shining  curve,  flowed  the  generous  Connecticut.  They 
flung  themselves  on  the  grass  and  tossed  stones  into  the 
river;  they  talked  like  old  friends.  Rowland  lit  a  cigar 
and  Roderick  refused  one  with  a  grimace  of  extravagant 
disgust.  He  thought  them  vile  things  ;  he  didn't  see  how 
decent  people  could  tolerate  them.  Rowland  was  amused 
— he  wondered  what  it  was  that  made  this  ill-mannered 
speech  seem  perfectly  inoffensive  on  Roderick's  lips.  He 
belonged  to  the  race  of  mortals,  to  be  pitied  or  envied 
according  as  we  view  the  matter,  who  are  not  held  to  a 
strict  account  for  their  aggressions.  Looking  at  him  as 
he  lay  stretched  in  the  shade,  Rowland  vaguely  likened 
him  to  some  beautiful,  supple,  restless,  bright-eyed  animal, 
whose  motions  should  have  no  deeper  warrant  than  the 
tremulous  delicacy  of  its  structure  and  seem  graceful  even 
when  they  were  most  inconvenient.  Rowland  watched  the 
shadows  on  Mount  Holyoke,  listened  to  the  gurgle  of  the 
river,  and  sniffed  the  balsam  of  the  pines.  A  gentle 
breeze  had  begun  to  tickle  their  summits,  and  broughc 
the  smell  of  the  mown  grass  across  from  the  elm-dotted 
river   meadows.      He  sat   up   beside   his   companion  and 


26  EODEIUCK  HUDSON. 

looked  away  at  tlie  far- spreading  view.  It  seemed  to  him 
beautiful,  and  suddenly  a  strange  feeling  of  prospective 
regret  took  possession  of  him.  Something  seemed  to  tell 
him  that  later,  in  a  forei^gn  land,  he  should  remember  it 
with  longing  and  regret. 

"  It's  a  wretched  business,"  he  said,  "  this  virtual  quarrel 
of  ours  with  our  own  country,  this  everlasting  impatience 
to  get  out  of  it.  Is  one's  only  safety  then  in  flight  I  This 
is  an  American  day,  an  American  landscape,  an  American 
atmosphere.  It  certainly  has  its  merits,  and  some  day 
when  I  am  shivering  with  ague  in  classic  Italy  I  shall 
accuse  myself  of  having  slighted  them." 

Roderick  kindled  with  a  sympathetic  glow,  and  declared 
that  America  w^as  good  enough  for  him  and  that  he  had 
always  thought  it  the  duty  of  an  honest  citizen  to  stand 
by  his  own  country  and  help  it  on.  He  had  evidently 
thought  nothing  whatever  about  it — he  was  launching  his 
doctrine  on  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  The  doctrine 
expanded  with  the  occasion,  and  he  declared  that  he  was 
above  all  an  advocate  for  American  art.  He  didn't  see 
why  we  shouldn't  produce  the  greatest  works  in  the  world. 
We  were  the  biggest  people,  and  we  ought  to  have  the 
biggest  conceptions.  The  biggest  conceptions  of  course 
would  bring  forth  in  time  the  biggest  performances.  We 
had  only  to  be  true  to  ourselves,  to  pitch  in  and  not  be 
afraid,  to  fling  Imitation  overboard  and  fix  our  eyes  upon 
our  National  Individuality.  *'I  declare,"  he  cried,  "there's 
a  career  for  a  man,  and  I  have,  twenty  minds  to  embrace  it 
on  the  spot — to  be  the  typical,  original,  national  American 
artist !      It's  inspiring  !  " 

Rowland  burst  out  laughing  and  told  him  that  he  liked 
his  practice  better  than  his  theory,  and  that  a  saner  im- 
pulse than  this  had  inspired  his  little  Water-drinker. 
Roderick  took  no  offence,  and  three  minutes  afterwards 
was  talking  volubly  of  some  humbler  theme — only  half 
heeded  by  his  companion,  who  had  returned  to  his  cogi- 
tations. "^At  last  Rowland  delivered  himself  of  the  upshot 
of  these  reflections.  "  How  should  you  like,"  he  suddenly 
demanded,  "  to  go  to  Rome  ?  " 

Hudson  stared,  and  %vith  a  laugh  which  speedily  con- 
signed our  National  Individuality  to  perdition,  responded 
that  he  should  like  it  reasonably  well.     "And  I  should 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  07 

like  by  the  same  token,"  he  added,  "to  go  to  Athens,  to 
Constantinople,  to  Damascus,  to  the  holy  city  of  Benares, 
where  there  is  a  golden  statue  of  Brahma  twenty-feet 
tall." 

"No,"  said  Eowland  soberly,  "if  you  were  to  go  to 
Kome  you  should  settle  down  and  work.  Athens  might 
help  you,  but  for  the  present  I  shouldn't  recommend 
Benares." 

"  It  will  be  time  to  arrange  details  when  I  pack  my 
trunk,"  said  Hudson. 

"  If  you  mean  to  turn  sculptor  the  sooner  you  pack 
your  trunk  the  better." 

"  Oh,  but  I'm  a  practical  man  !  What  is  the  smallest 
sum  per  annum  on  which  one  can  keep  alive  the  sacred 
fire?" 

"  What  is  the  largest  sum  at  your  disposal  ?  " 

Roderick  stroked  his  light  moustache,  gave  it  a  twist, 
and  then  announced  with  mock  pomposity — "  Three  hun- 
dred dollars !  " 

"  The  money  question  could  be  arranged,"  said  Rowland. 
"  There  are  ways  of  raising  money." 

"  I  should  like  to  know  a  few  !  I  never  yet  discovered 
one." 

"  One  of  them  consists,"  said  Rowland,  "  in  having  a 
friend  with  a  good  deal  more  than  he  wants  and  not  being 
too  proud  to  accept  a  part  of  it." 

Roderick  stared  a  moment  and  his  face  flushed.  "  Do 
you  mean — do  you  mean  1  "  .  .  .  .  He  stammered.  He  was 
greatly  excited. 

Rowland  got  up,  blushing  a  little,  and  Roderick  sprang 
to  his  feet.  "  In  three  words,  if  you  are  to  be  a  sculptor 
you  ought  to  go  to  Rome  and  study  the  antique.  To  go  to 
Rome  you  need  money.  I  am  fond  of  fine  statues,  but 
unfortunately  I  can't  make  them  myself.  I  have  to  order 
them.  I  order  a  dozen  from  you,  to  be  executed  at  your 
convenience.     To  help  you  I  pay  you  in  advance." 

Roderick  pushed  off  his  hat  and  pressed  his  forehead, 
still  gazing  at  his  companion.  "  You  believe  in  me  !  "  he 
cried  at  last. 

"Allow  me  to  explain,"  said  Rowland.  "I  believe  inl 
you  if  you  are  prepared  to  work  and  to  wait  and  to' 
struggle  and  to  exercise  a  great  many  virtues.     And  then 


28  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

I  am  afraid  to  say  it,  lest  I  should  disturb  you  more  than 
I  should  help  you.  You  must  decide  for  yourself.  I 
simply  offer  you  an  opportunity." 

Hudson  stood  for  some  time,  profoundly  meditative. 
"  You  have  not  seen  my  other  things,"  he  said  suddenly. 
"  Come  and  look  at  them." 

"NowT' 

"Yes,  we  will  walk  home.  We  will  settle  the  ques- 
tion." -      ' 

He  passed  his  hand  through  Rowland's  arm  and  they 
retraced  their  steps.  They  reached  the  town  and  made 
their  way  along  a  broad  country  street,  dusky  with  the 
shade  of  magnificent  elms.  Rowland  felt  his  companion's 
arm  trembling  in  his  own.  They  stopped  at  a  large  white 
house,  flanked  with  melancholy  hemlocks,  and  passed 
through  a  little  front  garden,  paved  with  moss-coated 
bricks  and  ornamented  with  parterres  bordered  with  high 
box  edges.  The  mansion  had  an  air  of  antiquated  dignity, 
but  it  had  seen  its  best  days  and  evidently  sheltered  a 
shrunken  household.  Mrs.  Hudson,  Rowland  was  sure, 
might  be  seen  in  the  garden  of  a  morning,  in  a  white 
apron  and  a  pair  of  old  gloves,  engaged  in  frugal  horti- 
culture. Roderick's  studio  was  behind,  in  the  basement  ;• 
a  large  empty  room,  with  the  paper  peeling  off  the  walls. 
This  represented,  in  the  fashion  of  fifty  years  ago,  a  series 
of  small  fantastic  landscapes  of  a  hideous  pattern,  and 
the  young  sculptor  had  presumably  torn  it  away  in  great 
scraps,  in  moments  of  sesthetic  exasperation.  On  a  board 
in  a  corner  was  a  heap  o£-clay,  and  on  the  floor,  against 
the  wall,  stood  some  dozen  medallions,  busts,  and  figures,  in 
various  stages  of  completion.  To  exhibit  them  Roderick 
had  to  place  them  one  by  one  on  the  end  of  a  long  packing- 
box,  which  served  as  a  pedestal.  He  did  so  silently, 
making  no  explanations  and  looking  at  them  himself  with 
a  strange  air  of  quickened  curiosity.  Most  of  the  things 
were  portraits,  and  the  three  at  which  he  looked  longest 
were  finished  busts.  One  was  a  colossal  head  of  a  negro, 
tossed  back,  defiant,  with  distended  nostrils ;  one  was  the 
portrait  of  a  young  man  whom  Rowland  immediately  per- 
ceived by  the  resemblance  to  be  his  lost  brother  ;  the  last 
represented  a  gentleman  with  a  pointed  nose,  a  long  close- 
shaven  upper  lip  and  a  tuft  on  the  end  of  his  chin.     This 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  20 

was  a  face  peculiarly  unadapted  to  sculpture ;  but  as  a 
piece  of  modelling  it  was  the  best,  and  it  was  admirable. 
It  reminded  Rowland  in  its  homely  veracity,  its  artless 
artfulness,  of  the  works  of  the  early  Italian  Kenaissance. 
On  the  pedestal  was  cut  the  name^ — Barnaby  Striker,  Esq. 
Rowland  remembered  that  this  wns  the  appellation  of  the 
legal  luminary  from  whom  his  companion  had  undertaken 
to  borrow  a  reflected  ray,  and  although  in  the  bust  there 
was  nothing  grossly  satirical,  it  betrayed  comically  to  one 
who  could  -relish  the  secret  that  the  features  of  the 
original  had  often  been  scanned  with  an  irritated  eye. 
Besides  these  there  were  several  rough  studies  of  the  nude 
and  two  or  three  figures  of  a  fanciful  kind.  The  most 
noticeable  (and  it  had  singular  beauty)  was  a  small 
modelled  design  for  a  sepulchral  monument ;  that  evidently 
of  Stephen  Hudson.  The  young  soldier  lay  sleeping 
eternally  with  his  hand  on  his  sword — like  an  old  crusader 
in  a  Gothic  cathedral. 

Rowland  made  no  haste  to  pronounce  ;  too  much  depended 
on  his  judgment.  "  Upon  my  word,"  cried  Hudson  at  last, 
'•  they  seem  to  me  very  good  !  " 

And  in  truth  as  Rowland  looked  he  saw  they  were  good. 
They  were  youthful,  awkward,  ignorant ;  the  effort  often 
was  more  apparent  than  the  success.  But  the  effort  was 
signally  powerful  and  intelligent ;  it  seemed  to  Rowland 
that  it  might  easily  hit  the  mark.  Here  and  there  the 
mark  had  been  hit  with  a  masterly  ring.  Rowland  turned 
to  his  companion,  who  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
and  his  hair  very  much  crumpled,  looking  at  him  askance. 
The  light  of  admiration  was  in  Rowland's  eyes,  and  it 
speedily  kindled  a  wonderful  illumination  on  Hudson's 
handsome  brow.  Rowland  said  at  last  simply,  "  You  have 
only  to  work  ! ' ' 

"  I  think  I  know  what  that  means,"  Roderick  answered. 
He  turned  away,  threw  himself  on  a  rickety  chair,  and 
sat  for  some  moments  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and 
his  head  in  his  hands.  "  Work — work?  "  he  said  at  last, 
looking  up ;  "  ah,  if  I  could  only  begin  !  "  He  glanced 
round  ^ihe  room  a  moment  and  his  eye  encountered  on  the 
mantelshelf  the  vivid  physiognomy  of  Mr.  Barnaby  Striker. 
His  sn.  ile  vanished — he  stared  at  it  with  an  air  of  concen- 
trated (mmity.     "  I  want  to  begin,"  he  cried,  "  and  I  can't 


30  RODERICK  HUDSOX. 

make  a  better  beginning  than  this  !  Good-bye,  Mr.  Bamaby 
.Striker  !  "  He  strode  across  the  room,  seized  a  hammer 
that  lay  at  hand,  and  before  Kowhmd  could  interfere,  in 
the  interest  of  art  if  not  of  morals,  dealt  a  merciless  blow 
upon  Mr.  Striker's  skull.  The  bust  cracked  into  a  dozen 
pieces,  which  toppled  with  a  great  crash  upon  the  floor. 
Kowland  relished  neither  the  destruction  of  the  image  nor 
his  companion's  look  in  working  it,  but  as  he  was  about 
to  express  his  displeasure  the  door  opened  and  gave  passage 
to  a  young  girl.  She  came  in  with  a  rapid  step  and  startled 
face,  as  if  she  had  been  alarmed  by  the  noise.  Seeing  the 
heap  of  shattered  clay  and  the  hammer  in  Roderick's  hand, 
she  gave  a  cry  of  horror.  Her  voice  died  away  when  she 
perceived  that  Rowland  was  a  stranger,  but  she  murmured 
reproachfully,  "  Why,  Roderick,  what  have  you  done  1 " 

Roderick  gave  a  joyous  kick  to  the  shapeless  fragments. 
"  I  have  driven  the  money-changers  out  of  the  temple  !  " 
he  cried. 

The  traces  retained  shape  enough  to  be  recognised,  and 
she  gave  a  little  moan  of  pity.  She  seemed  not  to  under- 
stand the  young  man's  allegory,  but  yet  to  feel  that  it 
pointed  to  some  great  purpose,  which  must  be  an  evil  one 
from  being  expressed  in  such  a  lawless  fashion,  and  to 
perceive  that  Rowland  was  in  some  way  accountable  for  it. 
She  looked  at  him  with  a  sharp  frank  mistrust  and  turned 
away  through  the  open  door.  Rowland  looked  after  her 
with  quickened  interest. 


III. 


Early  on  the  morrow  he  received  a  visit  from  Jiis  new- 
friend.  Roderick  was  in  a  state  of  extreme  exhilaration, 
tempered  however  by  a  certain  amount  of  righteous  wrath. 
He  had  had  a  domestic  struggle,  but  he  had  remained 
master  of  the  situation.  He  had  shaken  the  dust  of  Mr. 
Striker's  office  from  his  feet. 

**  I  had  it  out  last  night  with  my  mother,"  he  saii.     "  I 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  31 

dreaded  the  scene,  for  she  takes  things  terribly  hard.  She 
doesn't  scold  nor  storm,  and  she  doesn't  argue  nor  insist. 
She  sits  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears  that  never  fall,  and 
looks  at  me,  when  I  vex  her,  as  if  I  were  a  monster  of 
depravity.  And  the  trouble  is  that  I  was  born  to  vex  her. 
She  doesn't  trust  me  ;  she  never  has  and  she  never  will. 
I  don't  know  what  I  have  done  to  set  her  against  me, 
but  ever  since  I  can  remember  I  have  been  looked  at  with 
tears.  The  trouble  is,"  he  went  on,  giving  a  twist  to  his 
moustache,  "  I  have  been  too  great  a  mollycoddle.  I  have 
been  sprawling  all  my  days  by  the  maternal  fireside,  and  my 
dear  mother  has  grown  used  to  bullying  me.  I  have  made 
myself  cheap !  If  I  am  not  in  my  bed  by  eleven  o'clock, 
the  cook  is  sent  out  to  explore  with  a  lantern.  When  I 
think  of  it  I  despise  my  docility.  It's  rather  a  hard  fate, 
to  live  like  a  saint  and  to  pass  for  a  sinner.  I  should  like 
for  six  months  to  lead  Mrs.  Hudson  the  life  some  fellows 
lead  their  mothers  !  " 

"  Allow  me  to  believe,"  said  Rowland,  "  that  you  would 
like  nothing  of  the  sort.  If  you  have  been  a  good  boy, 
don't  spoil  it  by  pretending  you  don't  like  it.  You  have 
been  very  happy  in  spite  of  your  virtues,  and  there  are 
worse  fates  in  the  world  than  being  loved  too  well.  I  have 
not  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  your  mother,  but  I  will  lay 
you  a  wager  that  this  is  where  the  shoe  pinches.  She  is 
passionately  fond  of  you,  and  her  hopes,  like  all  intense 
hopes,  keep  trembling  into  fears."  Rowland,  as  he  spoke, 
had  an  instinctive  vision  of  how  this  beautiful  youth  must 
be  loved  by  his  female  relatives. 

Roderick  frowned,  and  with  an  impatient  gesture,  "I 
do  her  justice,"  he  cried— "may  she  never  do  me  less  !  " 
•  Then  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  "  I  will  tell  you  the  per- 
fect truth,"  he  went  on  ;  "I  have  to  fill  a  double  place.  I 
have  to  be  my  brother  as  well  as  myself.  It's  a  good  deal 
to  ask  of  a  man,  especially  when  he  has  so  little  talent  as 
I  for  being  what  he  is  not.  When  we  were  both  young 
together  I  was  the  curled  darling.  I  had  the  silver  mug 
and  the  biggest  piece  of  pudding,  and  I  stayed  m-doors 
to  be  kissed  by  the  ladies  while  he  made  mud-pies  m  the 
garden.  In  fact  he  was  worth  fifty  of  me!  When  he 
was  brought  home  from  Yicksburg  with  a  piece  of  shell  m 
his  skull,  my  poor  mother  began  to  think  she  hadn't  loved 


32  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

him  enough.  I  remember,  as  she  hung  round  my  neck 
sobbing,  before  his  coffin,  she  told  nie  that  I  must  be  to 
her  everything  that  he  would  have  been.  I  made  no  ecrd 
of  vows,  but  I  haven't  kept  them  all.  I  have  been  very 
different  from  Stephen.  I  have  been  idle,  restless,  egotis- 
tical, discontented.  I  have  done  no  harm  I  believe,  but 
I  have  done  no  good.  My  brother,  if  he  had  lived,  would 
have  made  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  had  the  parlour 
done  up.  My  mother,  brooding  night  and  day  on  her 
bereavement,  has  come  to  fix  her  ideal  in  little  atten- 
tions of  that  sort.  Judged  by  that  standard  I'm  no- 
where." 

Rowland  was  at  a  loss  what  to  believe  of  this  account 
of  his  friend's  domestic  circumstances  ;  it  was  plaintive, 
yet  it  seemed  to  him  rather  rough.  "  You  must  lose  no 
time  in  making  a  masterpiece,"  he  answered  ;  "  then  with 
the  proceeds  you  can  do  up  the  whole  house." 

"  So  I  have  told  her ;  but  she  only  half  believes  in  the 
thing.  She  can  see  no  good  in  my  making  statues  j  they 
seem  to  her  a  snare  of  the  enemy.  She  would  fain  see  me 
all  my  life  tethered  to  the  law,  like  a  browsing  goat  to  a 
stake.  In  that  way  I  am  in  sight.  *  It's  a  more  regular 
occupation  !  ' — that's  all  I  can  get  out  of  her.  A  more 
regular  damnation  !  Is  it  a  fact  that  artists  in  general  are 
such  wicked  men  ?  I  never  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing 
one,  so  I  couldn't  refute  her  with  an  example.  She  had 
the  advantage  of  me,  because  she  formerly  knew  a  portrait- 
painter  at  Richmond,  who  did  her  miniature  in  black  lace 
mittens  (you  may  see  it  on  the  parlour  table),  who  used  to 
drink  raw  brandy  and  beat  his  wife.  I  promised  her  that 
whatever  I  might  do  to  my  wife  I  would  never  beat  my 
mother,  and  that  as  for  brandy,  raw  or  diluted,  I  detested 
it.  She  sat  silently  crying  for  an  hour,  during  which  I 
expended  treasures  of  eloquence.  It's  a  good  thing  to  have 
to  take  stock  of  one's  intentions,  and  I  assure  you,  as  I 
pleaded  my  cause,  I  was  most  agreeably  impressed  with  the 
elevated  character  of  my  own.  I  kissed  her  solemnly 
at  last,  and  told  her  that  I  had  said  everything  and  that 
she  must  make  the  best  of  it.  This  morning  she  has  dried 
her  eyes,  but  I  warrant  you  it  isn't  a  cheerful  house.  I 
long  to  be  out  of  it !  " 

"  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  have  made  such  a  rumpus." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  33 

said  Rowland.  "  I  owe  your  mother  some  amends  ;  will  it 
be  possible  for  me  to  see  her  ?  " 

"  If  you  will  see  her,  it  will  smooth  matters  vastly  ; 
though  to  tell  the  truth  she  will  need  all  her  courage  to 
face  you,  for  she  considers  you  an  agent  of  the  foul  tiend. 
She  doesn't  see  why  you  should  have  come  here  and  set  me 
by  the  ears  :  you  are  made  to  ruin  young  law-sludents  and 
desolate  doting  mothers.  I  leave  it  to  you  personally  to 
answer  these  charges.  You  see,  what  she  can't  forgive — 
what  she  will  not  really  ever  forgive — is  your  taking  me  off 
to  Rome.  Rome  is  an  evil  word  in  my  mother's  vocabulary, 
to  be  said  in  a  whisper,  as  you'd  say  'damnation.' 
Northampton  is  in  the  centre  of  Christendom  and  Rome 
far  away  in  outlying  dusk,  into  which  it  can  do  no 
proper  moral  man  any  good  to  penetrate.  And  there  was 
I  but  yesterday  a  regular  attendant  at  that  repository  of 
every  virtue,  Mr.  Striker's  office  !  " 

"  And  does  Mr.  Striker  know  of  your  decision?  "  asked 
Rowland. 

"To  a  certainty  !  Mr.  Striker,  you  must  know,  is  not 
simply  a  good-natured  attorney  who  lets  me  dog's-ear  his 
law-books.  He's  a  particular  friend  and  general  adviser. 
He  looks  after  my  mother's  property  and  kindly  consents 
to  regard  me  as  part  of  it.  Our  opinions  have  always 
been  painfully  divergent,  but  I  freely  forgive  him  his 
zealous  attempts  to  unscrew  my  head-piece  and  set  it  on 
another  way.  He  never  understood  me,  and  it  was  useless 
to  try  to  make  him.  We  speak  a  different  language — we 
are  made  of  a  different  clay.  I  had  a  fit  of  rage  yesterday, 
when  I  smashed  his  bust,  at  the  thought  of  all  the  bad 
blood  he  had  stirred  up  in  me  ;  it  did  me  good,  and  it's  all 
over  now.  ]  don't  hate  him  any  more  ;  I  am  rather  "sorry 
for  him.  See  how  you  have  improved  me  !  I  must  have 
seemed  to  him  wilfully,  wickedly  stupid,  and  I  am  sure  he 
only  tolerated  me  on  account  of  his  great  regard  for  my 
mother.  This  morning  I  grasped  the  bull  by  the  horns.  I 
took  an  armful  of  law-books  that  have  been  gathering  the 
dust  in  my  room  for  the  last  year  and  a  half,  and  pre- 
sented myself  at  the  office.  '  Allow  me  to  put  these  back 
in  their  places,'  I  said.  '  I  shall  never  have  need  for  them 
more — never  more,  never  more,  never  more !  '  'So  you 
have    learned    everything   they  contain  1 '  says   the  grervt 

c 


34  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Striker,  leering  over  his  spectacles ;  '  better  late  than 
never !  '  '  I  have  learned  nothing  that  you  can  teach  me,' 
I  cried.  '  But  I  shall  tax  your  patience  no  longer.  I  am 
going  to  be  a  sculptor.  I  am  going  to  Home.  I  won't  bid 
you  good-bye  just  yet ;  I  shall  see  you  again.  But  I  bid 
good-bye  here  with  enthusiasm  to  these  four  detested 
walls— to  this  living  tomb !  I  didn't  know  till  now  how 
I  hated  the  place  !  My  compliments  to  Mr.  Spooner,  and 
mv  thanks  for  all  you  have  not  made  of  me  ! '  " 

''I  am  glad  to  know  you  are  to  see  Mr.  Striker  again," 
Rowland  answered,  correcting  a  primary  inclination  to 
smile.  "  You  certainly  owe  him  a  respectful  farewell,  even 
if  he  has  not  understood  you.  I  confess  you  rather  puzzle 
me.  There  is  another  person,"  he  presently  added,  "  whose 
opinion  as  to  your  new  career  I  should  like  to  know. 
What  does  Miss  Garland  think  1  " 

Hudson  looked  at  him  keenly,  with  a  slight  blush. 
Then  with  a  conscious  smile,  "  What  makes  you  suppose 
she  thinks  anything'?  "  he  asked. 

"  Because,  though  I  saw  her  but  for  a  moment  yesterday, 
she  struck  me  as  a  very  intelligent  girl,  and  I  am  sure  she 
has  opinions." 

The  smile  on  Roderick's  mobile  face  passed  rapidly  into 
a  frown.    "  Oh,  she  thinks  what  I  think  !  "  he  answered. 

Before  the  two  young  men  separated  Rowland  attempted 
to  give  as  harmonious  a  shape  as  possible  to  his  companion's 
future.  "I  have  launched  you,  as  I  may  say,"  he  said; 
"  and  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  see  you  into  port.  I  am  older 
than  you  and  know  the  world  better,  and  it  seems  well 
that  we  should  voyage  a  while  together.  It's  on  my  con- 
science that  I  ought  to  take  you  to  Rome,  walk  you  through 
the  Vatican,  and"  then  lock  you  up  with  a  heap  of  clay.  I 
sail  on  the  5th  of  September  ;  can  you  make  your  prepara- 
tions to  start  with  me  1  " 

Roderick  assented  to  all  this  with  an  air  of  candid 
confidence  in  his  friend's  wisdom  that  expressed  more  than 
formal  pledges.  "  I  have  no  preparations  to  make,"  he 
said  with  a  smile,  raising  his  arms  and  letting  them  fall, 
as  if  to  indicate  his  unencumbered  condition.  ''What  I 
am  to  take  with  me  I  carry  here  !  "  and  he  tapped  his 
forehead. 

'*  Happy  man  !  "  murmured  Rowland  with  a  sigh,  think- 


EODEKICK  HUDSON.  35 

ing  of  the  light  stowage  in  his  own  organism,  in  the  region 
indicated  by  Pvoderick,  and  of  the  heavy  one  in  deposit  at 
his  banker's,  of  bags  and  boxes. 

'  When  his  companion  had  left  him  he  went  in  search  of 
Cecilia.  She  was  sitting  at  work  at  a  shady  window,  and 
welcomed  him  to  a  low  chintz -covered  chair.  He  sat  some 
time  thoughtfully  snipping  wools  with  her  scissors  ;  he  ex- 
pected criticism  and  he  was  preparing  a  rejoinder.  At  last 
he  told  her  of  Roderick's  decision  and  of  his  own  p.art  in 
the  matter.  Cecilia,  besides  an  extreme  surprise,  exhibited 
a  certain  fine  displeasure  at  his  not  having  asked  her 
advice. 

"  AVhat  would  you  have  said  if  I  had  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  I  should  have  said  in  the  hrst  place,  '  Oh  for  pity's 
sake  don't  carry  ofl:  the  person  in  all  Northampton  who 
amuses  me  most !  '  I  should  have  said  in  the  second 
place,  '  Nonsense  !  the  boy  is  doing  very  well.  Let  well 
alone  !  '  " 

"  That  in  the  first  five  minutes.  What  would  you  have 
said  later  V 

"  That  for  a  man  who  is  generally  averse  to  meddling, 
you  were  suddenly  rather  otlicious." 

Rowland's  countenance  fell ;  he  frowned  in  silence. 
Cecilia  looked  at  him  askance  ;  gradually  the  spark  of 
irritation  faded  from  her  eye. 

"  Excuse  my  sharpness,"  she  resumed  at  last.  "  But  I 
am  literally  in  despair  at  losing  Roderick  Hudson.  His 
visits  in  the  evening,  for  the  past  year,  have  kept  me  alive. 
They  have  given  a  point  to  a  very  dull  life — a  kind  of 
silver- tip  to  days  that  seemed  made  of  a  baser  metal.  I 
don't  say  he  is  a  phoenix — but  I  liked  to  see  him.  Of 
course,  however,  that  I  shall  miss  him  sadly  is  not  a 
reason  for  his  not  going  to  seek  his  fortune.  Men  must 
work  and  women  must  weep  !  " 

"Decidedly  not !"  said  Rowland,  with  a  good  deal  of 
emphasis.  He  had  suspected  from  the  first  hour  of  his 
stay  that  Cecilia  had  a  private  satisfaction,  and  he  dis- 
covered that  she  found  it  in  Hudson's  lounging  visits  and 
boyish  chatter.  Now  he  wondered  whether,  judiciously 
viewed,  her  gain  in  the  matter  were  not  her  young  friend's 
loss.  It  was  evident  that  Cecilia  was  not  judicious,  and 
that  her  good  sense,  habitually  rigid  under  the  demands 

c  2 


3fi  EODEMICK  HUDSON. 

of  domestic  economy,  indulged  itself  with  a  certain  agree- 
able laxity  on  this  particular  point.  She  liked  her  young 
friend  just  as  he  was ;  she  humoured  him,  flattered  him, 
laughed  at  him,  caressed  him — did  everything  but  advise 
him.  It  was  a  flirtation  without  the  benefits  of  a  flirtation. 
She  w\as  too  old  to  let  him  fall  in  love  with  her,  which 
might  have  done  him  good  ;  and  her  inclination  was  to 
keep  him  young,  so  that  the  nonsense  he  talked  might 
never  transgress  a  certain  line.  It  was  quite  conceivable 
that  poor  Cecilia  should  relish  a  ])astime ;  but  if  one  had 
philanthropically  embraced  the  idea  that  something  con- 
siderable might  be  made  of  Roderick,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  see  that  her  friendship  was  not  what  might  be  called 
tonic.  So  Rowland  reflected,  in  the  glow  of  an  almost  crea- 
tive ardour.  There  was  a  later  time  when  he  would  have 
been  grateful  if  Hudson's  susceptibility  to  the  relaxing 
influence  of  lovely  women  might  have  Ijeen  limited  to  such 
inexpensive  tribute  as  he  rendered  the  excellent  Cecilia. 

"  I  only  wish  to  remind  you,"  she  went  on,  "  that  you 
are  likely  to  have  your  hands  full." 

"  I  have .  thought  of  that  :.nd  I  rather  like  the  idea  ; 
liking  as  I  do  the  man.  I  told  you  the  other  day,  you 
know,  that  I  longed  to  have  something  on  my  hands. 
When  it  first  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  start  our  young 
friend  on  the  path  of  glory,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  an  unim- 
peachable inspiration.  Then  I  remembered  there  were 
dangers  and  difficulties,  and  asked  myself  whether  I  had  a 
right  to  drag  him  out  of  his  obscurity.  My  notion  of  his 
really  having  a  great  talent  answered  the  question.  He  is 
made  to  do  the  things  that  we  are  the  better  for  having. 
I  can't  do  such  things  myself,  but  when  I  see  a  young  man 
of  genius  standing  helpless  and  hopeless  for  want  of 
capital,  I  feel — and  it's  no  alTectation  of  humility,  I  assure 
you — as  if  it  would  give  at  least  a  reflected  usefulness  to 
my  own  life  to  offer  him  his  opportunity." 

"  In  the  name  of  the  general  public  I  suppose  I  ought 
to  thank  you.  But  I  want  first  of  all  to  profit  myself. 
You  guarantee  us  at  any  rate,  I  hope,  the  master- 
pieces t  '■' 

"  A  master-piece  a  year,"  said  Rowland,  smiling,  "  for 
the  next  quarter  of  a  century." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  a  riijht  to  ask  more — to 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  37 

demand  that  you  guarantee  us  not  only  the  development  of 
the  artist  but  the  security  of  the  man." 

Rowland  became  grave  again.      "  His  security  ]  " 

"  His  moral,  his  sentimental  security.  Here  you  see,  it's 
perfect.  We  are  all  under  a  tacit  compact  to  keep  him 
quiet.  Perhaps  you  believe  in  the  necessary  turbulence  of 
genius,  and  you  intend  to  enjoin  upon  your  p-oteye  the 
importance  of  cultivating  his  passions," 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  a  man  of  genius  owes 
as  much  deference  to  his  passions  as  any  other  man,  but 
not  a  particle  more,  and  I  confess  I  have  a  strong  convic- 
tion that  the  artist  is  better  for  leading  a  quiet  life.  That 
is  what  I  shall  preach  to  my  iwoiege,  as  you  call  him,  by 
example  as  well  as  by  precept.  You  evidently  believe," 
he  added  in  a  moment,  "  that  he  will  lead  me  a  dance !  " 

''  No,  I  prophesy  nothing.  I  only  think  that  circum- 
stances, with  our  young  man,  have  a  great  influence  ;  as  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  although  he  has  been  fuming  and 
fretting  here  for  the  last  five  years,  he  has  nevertheless 
managed  to  make  the  best  of  it  and  found  it  easy  on  the 
whole  to  vegetate.  Transplanted  to  Rome,  I  fency  he  will 
put  forth  some  wonderful  flowers.  I  should  like  vastly  to 
see  the  change.  You  must  wiite  me  about  it  from  stage 
to  stage.  I  hope  with  all  my  heart  that  the  fruit  will  be 
23roportionate  to  the  foliage.  Don't  think  me  a  bird  of 
ill  omen  ;  only  remember  that  you  will  be  held  to  a  strict 
account." 

"  A  man  should  make  the  most  of  himself  and  be  helped 
if  he  needs  help,"  Rowland  answered  after  a  long  pause. 
"  Of  course  when  a  body  begins  to  expand,  there  comes  in 
the  possibility  of  bursting ;  but  I  nevertheless  approve 
of  a  certain  tension  of  one's  being.  It's  what  a  man  is 
meant-for.  ""And  then  I  believe  in  the  essential  salubrity 
of  genius— true  genius." 

''  Yery  good,"  said  Cecilia,  with  an  air  of  resignation 
which  made  Rowland  for  the  moment  seem  to  himself 
culpably  eager.  "  We  will  drink  then  to-day  at  dinner 
to  the  health  of  our  friend  !  " 

Having  it  much  at  heart  to  convince  Mrs.  Hudson  of 
the  purity  of  his  intentions,  Rowland  waited  upon  her 
that  evening.  He  was  ushered  into  a  large  parlour,  whicn 
by  the  light  of  a  couple  of  candles  he  perceived  to  be  Ytrj 


38  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

meagrely  famished  Jind  very  tenderly  aud  sparingly  used. 
The  windows  were  open  to  the  air  of  the  summer  night, 
and  a  circle  of  three  persons  was  temporarily  awed  into 
silence  by  his  fippearance.  One  of  these  was  Mrs.  Hudson, 
who  was  sitting  at  one  of  the  windows,  empty-handed  save 
for  the  pocket-handkerchief  in  her  lap,  which  was  held 
with  an  air  of  familiarity  with  its  sadder  uses.  Near  her, 
on  the  sofa,  half  sitting,  half  lounging,  in  the  attitude  of 
a  visitor  outstaying  ceremony,  with  one  long  leg  flung  over 
the  other  and  a  large  foot  in  a  clumsy  boot  swinging  to 
and  fro  continually,  was  a  lean,  sandy -haired  gentleman 
whom  Kowland  recognised  as  the  original  of  the  portrait 
of  Mr.  Barnaby  Striker.  At  the  table,  near  the  candles, 
busy  with  a  substantial  piece  of  needlework,  sat  the  young 
girl  of  whom  he  had  had  a  moment's  (juickened  glimpse 
in  Roderick's  studio  and  whom  he  had  learned  to  be  Miss 
Garland,  his  companion's  kinswoman.  This  young  lady's 
limpid  penetrating  gaze  was  the  most  effective  greeting  he 
received^)  Mrs.  Hudson  rose  with  a  soft,  vague  sound  of 
distress  and  stood  looking  at  him  shrinkingly  and  waver- 
ingly,  as  if  she  were  sorely  temjjted  to  retreat  through 
the  open  window.  Mr.  Striker  swung  his  long  leg  a  trifle 
defiantly.  No  one  evidently  was  used  to  ottering  hollow 
welcomes  or  telling  polite  fibs.  Rowland  introduced 
himself  ;  he  had  come  he  might  say  upon  business. 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson  tremulously;  "I  know — my 
son  has  told  me.  I  suppose  it  is  better  I  should  see  you. 
Perhaps  you  will  take  a  seat  1 " 

"With  this  invitation  Rowland  prepared  to  comply,  and 
turning,  grasped  the  first  chair  that  offered  itself. 

"  Not  that  one,"  said  a  full  grave  voice ;  whereupon  he 
perceived  that  a  thick  skein  of  sewing-silk  had  been  sus- 
pended and  entangled  over  the  back,  for  the  purpose  of 
being  wound  on  reels.  He  felt  the  least  bit  irritated  at 
the  curtness  of  the  warning,  coming  as  it  did  from  a  young 
woman  whose  countenance  he  had  mentally  pronounced 
interesting  and  with  regard  to  whom  he  was  conscious  of 
the  germ  of  the  inevitable  desire  to  produce  a  responsive 
interest.  And  then  he  thought  it  would  break  the  ice  to 
say  something  playfully  urbane. 

'*  Oh,  you  should  let  me  take  the  chair,"  he  answered, 
"  and  have  the  pleasure  of  holding  the  skein  myself  ! " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  39 

For  all  reply  to  this  sally  he  received  a  stare  of  undis- 
guised amazement  from  Miss  Garland,  who  then  looked 
across  at  Mrs.  Hudson  with  a  glance  which  plainly  said 
"  You  see  he's  quite  the  insinuating  foreigner  we  feared." 
The  elder  lady  however  sat  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
ground  and  her  two  hands  tightly  clasped.  But  as  regards 
Mrs.  Hudson,  Rowland  felt  much  more  compassion  than 
resentment ;  her  attitude  was  not  coldness,  it  was  a  kind 
of  dread,  almost  a  terror.  She  was  a  small  eager  woman, 
with  a  pale  troubled  face  which  added  to  her  apparent  ao-e. 
After  looking  at  her  for  some  minutes  Rowland  saw  that 
she  was  still  young  and  that  she  must  have  been  a  very 
girlish  bride.  She  had  been  a  pretty  one  too,  though  she 
probably  had  looked  terribly  frightened  at  the  altar.  She 
was  very  delicately  shaped,  and  Roderick  had  come  honestly 
by  his  physical  slimness  and  elegance.  She  wore  no  cap, 
and  her  flaxen  hair,  which  was  of  extraordinary  fineness, 
was  smoothed  and  confined  with  Puritanic  precision.  She 
was  excessively  shy  and  evidently  very  humble-minded ; 
it  was  singular  to  see  a  woman  to  whom  the  experience  of 
life  had  conveyed  such  scanty  reassurance.  Rowland  br  oran 
immediately  to  like  her,  and  to  feel  imj)atient  to  persuade 
her  that  there  was  no  harm  in  him.  He  foresaw  that  she 
would  be  easy  to  persuade  and  that  a  benevolent  conversa- 
tional tone  would  probably  make  her  pass  fluttering  from 
distrust  into  an  opjDressive  extreme  of  confidence.  But  he 
had  an  indefinable  sense  that  the  person  who  was  testing 
that  strong  young  eyesight  of  hers  in  the  dim  candle-light 
was  less  readily  beguiled  from  her  mysterious  feminine 
preconceptions.  [Miss  Garland,  according  to  Cecilia's  judg- 
ment, as  RowlanH  remembered,  had  not  a  countenance  to 
inspire  a  sculptor  ;  but  it  seemed  to  Rowland  that  her 
countenance  might  fairly  inspire  a  man  whose  relation  to 
the  beautiful  was  amateurish.  She  was  not  pretty,  as  the 
eye  of  habit  judges  prettiness,  but  when  you  made  the 
observation  you  somehow  failed  to  set  it  down  against  her, 
for  you  had  already  passed  from  measuring  contours  to 
tracing  meanings?)  In  Mary  Garland's  face  there  were 
many  possible  ones,  and  they  gave  you  the  more  to  think 
about  that  it  was  not — like  Roderick  Hudson's,  for  instance 
— a  quick  and  mobile  face,  over  which  expression  flickered 
like  a  candle  in  a  wind.     They  followed  each  other  slowly, 


40  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

distinctly,  sincerely,  and  you  might  almost  have  fancied 
J^hat,  as  they  came  and  went,  they  gave  her  a  sort  of  pain, 
I  She  was  tall  and  slender,  and  had  an  air  of  maidenly 
sl:rength  and  decision.  She  had  a  broad  forehead  and 
dark  eyebrows,  a  trifle  thicker  than  those  of  classic 
beauties;  her  grey  eye  was  clear  but  not  brilliant,  and  her 
features  w^ere  bravely  irregular."^  Her  mouth  enabled  her 
smile — which  was  the  principal~^race  of  her  physiognomy 
— to  display  itself  with  magnificent  amplitude,  Rowland, 
indeed,  had  not  yet  seen  this  smile  in  operation ;  but  some- 
thing assured  him  that  her  rigid  gravity  had  a  radiant 
counterpart.  She  wore  a  scanty  white  dress,  and  had  a 
nameless  rustic,  provincial  air  ;  she  looked  like  a  distin- 
guished villager.  She  was  evidently  a  girl  of  a  great 
personal  force,  but  she  lacked  pliancy.  She  was  hemming 
a  kitchen  towel  with  the  aid  of  a  large  steel  thimble.  She 
bent  her  serious  eyes  at  last  on  the  work  again  and  let 
Rowland  explain  himself. 

"  I  have  become  suddenly  so  very  intimate  with  your 
son,"  he  said  at  last,  addressing  himself  to  Mrs.  Hudson, 
"  that  it  seems  proper  I  should  make  your  acquaintance." 

"Very  proper,"  murmured  the  poor  lady,  and  after  a 
moment's  hesitation  was  on  the  point  of  adding  something 
more  ;  but  Mr,  Striker  here  interposed,  after  a  prefatory 
clearance  of  the  throat : 

"  I  should  like  to  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you  a 
simple  question  !  For  how  long  a  period  of  time  have  you 
been  acquainted  with  our  young  friend  1  "  He  continued 
to  kick  the  air,  but  his  head  was  thrown  back  and  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  opposite  wall,  as  if  to  avert  themselves  from 
the  spectacle  of  Rowland's  inevitable  confusion. 

"  A  very  short  time,  I  confess.     Hardly  three  days." 

"  And  yet  you  call  yourself  intimate,  eh  ?  I  have  been 
seeing  Mr.  Roderick  daily  these  three  years,  and  yet  it 
was  only  this  morning  that  I  felt  as  if  I  had  at  last  the 
right  to  say  that  I  knew  him.  We  had  a  few  moments' 
conversation  in  my  ofiice  which  supplied  the  missing  links 
in  the  evidence.  So  that  now  I  do  venture  to  say  I'm 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Roderick  !  But  wait  three  years,  sir, 
like  me  !  "  and  Mr,  Striker  langlied,  witli  a  closed  mouth 
and  a  noiseless  shake  of  all  his  long  person. 

Mrs.  Hudson  smiled  confusedly,  at  hazard  ;  Miss  Garland 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  41 

kept  her  eyes  on  her  stitches.  But  it  seemed  to  Rowland 
that  the  latter  coloured  a  little.  "  Oh,  in  three  years,  of 
course,"  he  said,  "  we  shall  know  each  other  better.  Before 
many  years  are  over,  madam,"  he  pursued,  "I  expect  the 
•world  to  know  him.     I  expect  him  to  be  a  great  man !  " 

Mrs.  Hudson  looked  at  first  as  if  this  could  be  but  an 
insidious  device  for  increasing  her  distress  by  the  assist- 
ance of  irony.  Then  reassured  little  by  little  by  Rowland's 
frank  smile,  she  gave  him  an  appealing  glance  and  a  timor- 
ous "  Really  1  " 

But  before  Rowland  could  respond,  iMr.  Striker  again 
intervened.  "Do  I  fully  apprehend  your  expression  1"  he 
asked.     "  Our  young  friend  is  to  become  a  great  mem  ?  " 

"  A  great  artist,  I  hope,"  said  Rowland. 

"  This  is  a  new  and  interesting  view,"  said  Mr.  Striker, 
with  an  assumption  of  judicial  calmness.  "  We  have  had 
hopes  for  Mr.  Roderick,  but  I  confess  that  if  I  have  rightly 
understood  them  they  stopped  short  of  greatness.  We 
shouldn't  have  taken  the  responsibility  of  claiming  it  for 
him.  What  do  you  say,  ladies  %  We  all  feel  about  him  here 
— his  mother,  Miss  Garland  and  myself — as  if  his  merits 
were  rather  in  the  line  of  the  " — and  Mr.  Striker  waved 
his  hand  with  a  series  of  fantastic  flourishes  in  the  air 
— "  of  the  light  ornamental !  "  Mr.  Striker  bore  his  re- 
calcitrant pupil  a  grudge  ;  yet  he  was  evidently  trying  both 
to  be  fair  and  to  respect  the  susceptibilities  of  his  com- 
panions. But  he  was  unversed  in  the  mysterious  processes 
of  feminine  emotion.  Ten  minutes  before  there  had  been 
a  general  harmony  of  sombre  views ;  but  on  hearing 
Roderick's  limitations  thus  distinctly  formulated  to  a 
stranger,  the  two  ladies  mutely  protested.  Mrs.  Hudson 
uttered  a  short  faint  sigh,  and  Miss  Garland  raised  her 
eyes  toward  their  advocate  and  visited  him  with  a  short  j. 
cold  glance.  ^ 

"  I  am  afraid,  Mrs.  Hudson,"  Rowland  pursued,  evading 
the  discussion  of  Roderick's  possible  greatness,  "  that  you 
don't  at  all  thank  me  for  stirring  up  your  son's  ambition 
for  objects  that  lead  him  so  far  from  home.  I  suspect 
I  have  made  you  my  enemy." 

Mrs.  Hudson  covered  her  mouth  with  her  finger-tips  and 
looked  painfully  perplexed  between  the  desire  to  confess 
the  truth  and  the  fear  of  being  impolite.      *'  My  cousin  is 


42  RODERICK  TIITDSON. 

no  one's  enemy,"  Miss  Garland  hereupon  declared  gently, 
but  with  that  same  fine  deliberateness  with  which  she  had 
made  Kowland  relax  his  grasp  of  the  chair. 

"  Does  she  leave  that  to  you  'i  "  Rowland  ventured  to 
ask  with  a  smile. 

"We  are  inspired  with  none  but  Christian  sentiments," 
said  Mr.  Striker  ;  "  Miss  Garland  perhaps  most  of  all. 
Miss  Garland,"  and  Mr.  Striker  waved  his  hand  again  as 
if  to  perform  an  introduction  which  had  been  regrettably 
omitted,  "  is  the  daughter  of  a  minister,  the  grand-daughter 
of  a  minister,  the  sister  of  a  minister."  Kowland  bowed 
deferentially,  and  the  young  girl  went  on  with  her  sewing, 
with  nothing  apparently  either  of  embarrassment  or  elation 
at  the  promulgation  of  these  facts.  Mr.  Striker  continued 
— "  Mrs.  Hudson,  I  see,  is  too  deeply  agitated  to  converse 
with  you  freely.  She  will  allow  me  to  address  you  a  few 
questions.  Would  you  kindly  inform  her  as  exactly  as 
possible  just  what  you  propose  to  do  with  her  son  1  " 

The  poor  lady  fixed  her  eyes  appealingly  on  Rowland's  face 
and  seemed  to  say  that  Mr.  Striker  had  spoken  her  desire, 
though  she  herself  would  have  expressed  it  less  defiantly. 
But  Rowland  saw  in  Mr.  Striker's  many  wrinkled  light 
blue  eye,  shrewd  at  once  and  good-natured,  that  he  had  no 
intention  of  defiance,  and  that  he  was  simply  pompous  and 
conceited  and  sarcastically  compassionate  of  any  view  of 
things  in  which  Roderick  Hudson  was  regarded  in  a  serious 
light. 

"  Do,  my  dear  madam  1 "  demanded  Rowland.  "  I  don't 
propose  to  do  anything.  He  must  do  for  himself.  I 
simply  offer  him  the  chance.  He  is  to  study,  to  work — 
hard  I  hope." 

"  Kot  too  hard  please,"  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson,  plead- 
ingly, wheeling  about  from  recent  visions  of  dangerous 
leisure.  "  He's  not  very  strong,  and  I  am  afraid  the 
climate  of  Europe  is  very  relaxing." 

"  Ah,  study  !  "  repeated  Mr.  Striker.  "  To  what  line  of 
study  is  he  to  direct  his  attention  ?  "  Then  suddenly,  with 
an  impulse  of  disinterested  curiosity  on  his  own  account, 
*'  How  do  you  study  sculpture,  anyhow  1  " 

"  By  looking  at  models  and  imitating  them." 

"  At  models,  eh  ]  To  what  kind  of  models  do  you 
refer  1  " 


RODKIUCK  HUDSON.  43 

"  To  the  antique  in  the  first  place." 

"  Ah,  the  antique,"  repeated  Mr.  Striker  with  a  joco.se 
intonation.  "  Do  you  hear,  madam  'i  Boderick  is  going 
oiit:  to  Europe  to  learn  to  imitate  the  antique." 

"  I  suppose  it's  all  right,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson,  twisting 
herself  in  a  sort  of  delicate  anguish. 

"An  antique  as  I  understand  it,"  the  lawyer  continued, 
"is  an  image  of  a  pagan  deity,  with  considerable  dirt 
sticking  to  it,  and  no  arms,  no  nose,  and  no  clothing.  A 
precious  model  certainly  !  " 

•'  That's  a  very  good  description  of  many,"  said  E-owland, 
with  a  laugh. 

"  Mercy  !  Truly  1 "  asked  Mrs.  Hudson,  borrowing 
courage  from  his  urbanity. 

"  But  a  sculptor's  studies,  you  intimate,  are  not  confined 
to  the  antique,"  Mr.  Striker  resumed.  "After  he  has 
been  looking  three  or  four  years  at  the  objects  I 
describe — " 

"  He  studies  the  living  model,"  said  Eowland. 

"  Does  it  take  three  or  four  years  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Hudson 
imploringly. 

"  That  depends  upon  the  artist's  aptitude.  After  twenty 
years  a  real  artist  is  still  stud3dng." 

"  Oh,  my  poor  boy  !  "  moaned  Mrs.  Hudson,  finding  the 
prospect,  under  every  light,  still  terrible. 

"  Now  this  study  of  the  living  model,"  Mr.  Striker  pur- 
sued.    "  Give  Mrs.  Hudson  a  sketch  of  that." 

"  Oh  dear,  no  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Hudson,  shrinkingly. 

"  That  too,"  said  Rowland,  "  is  one  of  the  reasons  for 
studying  in  Eome.  It's  a  handsome  race,  you  know,  and 
you  find  very  well-made  people." 

"I  suppose  they're  no  better  made  than  a  good  tough 
Yankee,"  objected  Mr.  Striker,  transposing  his  intermin- 
able legs.      "  The  same  God  made  us  !  " 

"  Surely,"  sighed  Mrs.  Hudson,  but  with  a  questioning 
glance  at  her  visitor  which  showed  that  she  had  already 
begun  to  concede  much  weight  to  his  opinion.  Rowland 
hastened  to  express  his  assent  to  Mr.  Striker's  proposi- 
tion. 

Miss  Garland  looked  up,  and,  after  a  moment's  hesitation 
— "  Are  the  Roman  women  very  beautiful  1"  she  asked. ^ 

Rowland  too,  in  answering,  hesitated;  he  was  looking 


44  KOI'EiaCK  HUDSON. 

straight  at  the  young  girl.  "  Un  the  whole  I  prefer  ours," 
he  said. 

She  had  dropjied  her  work  in  her  lap;  her  hands  were 
crossed  u})on  it,  her  head  thro\\n  a  little  back.  She  had 
evidently  expected  a  more  impersonal  answer,  and  she  was 
dissatisfied.  For  an  instant  she  seemed  inclined  to  make 
a  rejoinder,  but  she  slowly  picked  up  her  work  in  silence, 
and  drew  her  stitches  again. 

Kowland  had  for  the  second  time  the  feeling  that  she 
judged  him  to  be  a  person  of  a  disagreeably  sophisticated 
tone.  He  noticed  too  that  the  Idtchen  towel  she  was 
hemming  was  terribly  coarse.  And  yet  his  answer  had  a 
resonant  inward  echo,  and  he  i«epeated  to  himself,  "  Yes,  on 
the  whole  I  prefer  ours." 

"  Well,  these  models,"  began  Mr.  Striker.  "  You  put 
them  into  an  attitude,  I  suppose  1  " 

"  An  attitude,  exactly." 

"  And  then  you  sit  down  and  look  at  them  1 " 

"  You  must  not  sit  too  long.  You  must  go  at  your  clay 
and  try  to  build  up  something  that  looks  like  them." 

"  Well,  there  you  are  with  your  model  in  an  attitude  on 
one  side,  yourself  in  an  attitude  too  I  suppose  on  the 
other,  and  your  pile  of  clay  in  the  middle,  building  up  as 
you  say.  So  you  pass  the  morning.  After  that  I  hope 
you  go  out  and  take  a  walk  and  rest  from  your  exertions." 

"  Unquestionably.  But  to  a  sculptor  who  loves  his 
work  there  is  no  time  lost.  Everything  he  looks  at 
teaches  or  suggests  something." 

"  That's  a  tempting  doctrine  to  young  men  with  a  taste 
for  sitting  by  the  hour  with  the  page  unturned,  watching- 
the  flies  buzz,  or  the  frost  melt  on  the  window-pane.  Our 
young  friend  in  this  way  must  have  laid  up  stores  of 
information  which  I  never  suspected  !  " 

"  It  is  very  possible,"  said  Ivowdand  with  an  unresenti'ul 
smile,  "  that  he  will  prove  some  day  tn'.;  completer  artist 
for  some  of  those Aazy  reveries." 

This  theory  was  apparently  very  grateful  to  Mrs.  Hud- 
son, who  had  never  had  the  case  put  for  her  son  with  such 
ingenious  hopefulness,  and  who  found  herself  disrelishing 
the  singular  situation  of  seeming  to  side  against  her  own 
tiesh  and  blood  wath  a-  lawyer  whose  conversational  tone 
betrayed  the  habit  of  cross-questioning. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  45 

"  My  son  then,"  she  ventured  to  ask,  "  my  son  has  great 
— what  you  would  call  great  powers  'i  " 

"  To  my  sense  very  great  powers." 

Poor  Mrs.  Hudson  actually  smiled,  broadly,  gleefully, 
and  glanced  at  Miss  Garland  as  if  to  invite  her  to  do  like- 
wise. But  the  young  girl's  face  remained  as  serious  as  the 
eastern  sky  when  the  opposite  sunset  is  too  feeble  to  make 
it  glow.  "  Do  you  really  know  ?  "  she  asked,  looking  at 
Kowland. 

"  One  can't  know  in  such  a  matter  save  after  proof,  and 
proof  takes  time.     But  one  can  believe." 

"  And  you  believe  1  " 

"  I  believe." 

But  even  then  Miss  Garland  vouchsafed  no  smile ;  her 
face  became  graver  tlian  ever. 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson,  "  we  must  hope  that  it 
is  all  for  the  best." 

Mr.  Striker  eyed  his  old  friend  for  a  moment  with  a 
look  of  some  displeasure  ;  he  saw  that  this  was  but  a 
cunning  feminine  imitation  of  resignation,  and  that,  through 
some  untraceable  process  of  transition,  she  was  now  taking 
more  comfort  in  the  opinions  of  this  sophistical  stranger 
than  in  his  own  tough  dogmas.  He  rose  to  his  feet,  with- 
out pulling  down  his  waistcoat,  but  with  a  wrinkled  grin 
at  the  inconsistency  of  women.  "  Well,  sir,  Mr.  Roderick's 
powers  are  nothing  to  me,"  he  said,  "  no,  nor  the  use  he 
makes  of  them.  Good  or  bad,  he's  no  son  of  mine.  But 
in  a  friendly  way  I'ni  glad  to  hear  so  fine  an  account  of 
him.  I'm  glad,  madam,  you're  so  satisfied  with  the  prospect. 
Affection,  sir,  you  see  must  have  its  guarantees  !  "  He 
paused  a  moment,  stroking  his  beard,  with  his  head  inclined 
and  one  eye  half -closed,  looking  at  Rowland.  The  look 
was  grotesque,  but  it  was  significant,  and  it  puzzled  Bow- 
land  more  than  it  amused  him.  "  I  suppose  you  are  a  very 
brilliant  young  man,"  he  went  on,  "  very  enlightened,  verv 
cultivated,  quite  up  to  the  mark  in  the  fine  arts  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  I'm  a  plain  practical  old  boy,  content 
to  follow  an  honourable  jirofession  in  a  free  country.  I 
didn't  go  off  to  the  Old  World  to  learn  my  business ;  no 
one  took  me  by  the  hand  ;  I  had  to  grease  my  wheels 
myself,  and  such  as  I  am  I'm  a  self-made  man,  every  inch 
of  me  !     Well,  if  our  young  friend  is  booked  for  fame  and 


46  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

fortune  I  don't  suppose  liis  going  to  Rome  will  stop  him. 
But,  mind  you,  it  won't  help  him  such  a  long  way  either. 
If  you  have  undertaken  to  put  liim  through,  there's  a  thing 
or  two  you  had  bettor  remember.  The  crop  we  gather 
depends  upon  the  seed  we  sow.  He  may  be  the  biggest 
genius  of  the  age  ;  his  potatoes  won't  come  ujj  without  his 
hoeing  them.  If  he  takes  things  so  almighty  easy  as — 
well,  as  one  or  two  young  fellows  of  genius  I've  had  under 
my  eye — his  produce  will  never  gain  the  prize.  Take  the 
word  for  it  of  a  man  who  has  made  his  way  inch  by  inch 
and  doe-sn't  believe  that  we  wake  up  to  find  our  work  done 
because  we  have  lain  all  night  a-dreaming  of  it ;  anything 
worth  doing  is  devilish  hard  to  do  !  If  your  young  gentle- 
man finds  things  easy  and  has  a  good  time  of  it  and  says 
he  likes  the  life,  it's  a  sign  that — as  I  may  say — you  had 
better  step  round  to  the  office  and  look  at  the  books. 
That's  all  I  desire  to  remark.  No  offence  intended.  I 
hope  you'll  have  a  first-rate  time." 

Rowland  could  honestly  reply  that  this  seemed  pregnant 
sense,  and  he  offered  Mr.  Striker  a  friendly  hand-shake  as 
the  latter  withdrew.  But  Mr.  Striker's  rather  grim  view 
of  matters  cast  a  momentary  shadow  on  his  companions, 
and  Mrs.  Hudson  seemed  to  feel  that  it  necessitated  be- 
tween them  some  little  friendly  agreement  not  to  be 
overawed. 

Rowland  sat  for  some  time  longer,  partly  because  he 
wished  to  please  the  two  women  and  partly  because  he  w-as 
strangely  pleased  himself.  There  was  something  touching 
in  their  unworldly  fears  and  diffident  hopes,  something 
almost  terrible  in  the  way  i3oor  little  Mrs.  Hudson  seemed 
to  flutter  and  (juiver  with  intense  maternal  passion.  She 
put  forth  one  timid  conversational  venture  after  another, 
and  asked  Rowland  a  number  of  questions  about  himself, 
his  age,  his  family,  his  occupations,  his  tastes,  his  religious 
opinions.  Rowland  had  an  odd  feeling  at  last  that  she 
had  begun  to  believe  him  very  exemplary  and  that  she 
might  make  later  some  perturbing  discovery.  He  tried 
therefore  to  iiivent  something  that  would  prepare  her  to 
find  him  fallible.  But  he  could  think  of  nothing.  It  only 
seemed  to  him  that  Miss  Garland  secretly  mistrusted  him 
and  that  he  must  leave  her  to  render  him  the  service, 
after  he  had  gone,  of  making  him  the  object  of  a  little 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  47 

conscientious  derogation.  Mrs.  Hudson  talked  with  low- 
voiced  eagerness  about  her  son. 

"  He's  very  lovable,  sir,  I  assure  you.  When  you  come 
to  know  him  you  will  lind  him  very  lovable.  He's  a  little 
spoiled,  of  course  ;  he  has  always  done  with  me  as  he 
pleased  ;  but  he's  a  good  boy,  I  am  sure  he's  a  good  boy. 
And  every  one  thinks  him  very  attractive :  I  am  sure  he 
w^ould  be  noticed  anywhere.  Don't  you  think  he's  very 
handsome,  sir  ?  He  is  the  very  copy  of  his  poor  father. 
I  had  another — perhaps  you  have  been  told.  He  was 
killed."  And  the  poor  little  lady  bravely  smiled,  for  fear 
of  doing  worse.  "  He  was  a  very  fine  boy,  but  very  dif- 
ferent from  Eoderick.  Roderick  is  a  little  strange  ;  he 
has  never  been  an  easy  boy.  Sometimes  I  feel  like  the 
goose — wasn't  it  a  goose,  dear?  "  and  startled  by  the  auda- 
city of  her  comparison  she  apjiealed  to  Miss  Garland  — 
"  the  goose  or  the  hen,  who  hatched  a  swan's  egg.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  give  him  what  he  needs.  I  have  always 
thought  that  in  more — in  more  brilliant  circumstances  he 
might  find  his  place  and  be  happy.  But  at  the  same  time 
I  was  afraid  of  the  world  for  him  ;  it  was  so  dangerous 
and  dreadful — so  mixed.  No  doubt  I  know  very  little 
about  it.  I  never  suspected,  I  confess,  that  it  contained 
persons  of  such  liberality  as  yours." 

Rowland  replied  that  evidently  she  had  done  the  world 
but  scanty  justice. 

"  No,"  objected  Miss  Garland  after  a  pause,  "it  is  like 
something  in  a  fairy  tale." 

"  What,  pray  1  " 

"  Your  coming  here  all  unknown,  so  rich  and  so  polite, 
and  carrying  off  my  cousin  in  a  golden  cloud." 

If  this  was  badinage  Miss  Garland  had  the  best  of  it, 
for  Rowland  almost  fell  a-musing  silently  over  the  question 
whether  there  were  a  possibility  of  irony  in  the  young 
lady's  lucid  glance.  Before  he  withdrew  Mrs.  Hudson 
made  him  tell  her  again  that  Roderick's  powers  were 
extraordinary.  He  had  inspired  her  with  a  clinging, 
caressing  faith  in  his  wisdom.  "  He  will  really  do  great 
things  'i  "  she  asked — "  the  very  greatest  1  " 

"  I  see  no  intrinsic  reason  why  he  should  not." 

"  Well,  we  shall  think  of  that  as  we  sit  here  alone,"  she 
rejoined.     "  Mary  and  I  will  sit  here  and  talk  about  it. 


4R  RODEIilC'K  HUDSON. 

So  I  give  him  iij),"  she  went  on,  as  he  was  going.  "  I  am 
sure  you  will  l)e  the  best  of  friends  to  liim  ;  but  if  you 
should  over  forget  hiin  or  grow  tired  of  him — if  you 
should  lose  your  interest  in  him  and  he  should  come  to 
any  harm  or  any  trouble,  please  sir,  remember — "  and  she 
paused,  with  a  tremulous  voice. 
"  JU'Uiember,  my  dear  madam  1  " 

"'J'hat  he  is  allJ  have— that  he  is  everything — and  that 
it  would  be  very  terrii)le." 

"  In  80  far  as  I  can  help  him  he  shall  succeed,"  was  all 
Rowland  could  say.  He  turned  to  Miss  Garland  to  bid 
her  good-night,  and  she  rose  and  put  out  her  hand.  She 
was  very  straightforward,  but  he  could  see  that  if  she  was 
too  modest  to  be  bold  she  was  much  too  simple  to  be  shy. 
"  Have  you  no  injunctions  to  give  me  'I  "  he  asked — to  ask 
her  something. 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment  and  then,  although  slie  was 
not  shy,  she  blushed.     "  Make  him  do  his  best,"  she  said. 

Kowland  noted  the  soft  intensity  with  which  the  words 
were  uttered.     "  Do  you  take  a  great  interest  in  him  1  "  he 
demanded. 
"  ("'ertainly." 

"Then  if  he  will  not  do  his  best  for  you  he  will  not 
do  it  for  me."  She  turned  away  with  another  blush  and 
I'owland  took  his  leave. 

He  walked  homeward,  thinking  of  many  things.  The 
great  Northampton  elms  inter-arched  far  above  in  the  dark- 
ness, but  the  moon  had  risen  and  through  scattered  aper- 
tures was  hanging  the  dusky. vault  with  silver  lamps. 
There  seemed  to  Eowland  something  intensely  serious  in 
the  scene  in  which  he  had  just  taken  part.  He  had 
laughed  and  talked  and  braved  it  out  in  self-defence  ;  but 
when  he  reflected  that  he  was  really  meddling  with  the 
simple  stillness  of  this  little  New  England  home,  and  that 
he  had  ventured  to  disturb  so  much  living  security  in  the 
interest  of  a  far-away,  fantastic  hypothesis,  he  paused, 
amazed  at  his  temerity-  It  was  true,  as  Cecilia  hr.d 
said,  that  for  an  unoflicious  man  it  was  a  singular  position. 
There  stirred  in  his  mind  an  odd  feeling  of  annoyance  with 
•iloderick  for  having  so  peremptorily  taken  j^ossession  of 
his  mind.  As  he  looked  up  and  down  the  long  vista,  and 
saw  the  clear  white  houses  glancing  here  and  there  in  the 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  49 

broken  moonshine,  he  could  almost  have  believed  that  the 
happiest  lot  for  any  man  was  to  make  the  most  of  life  in 
some  such  tranquil  spot  as  that.  Here  were  kindness, 
comfort,  safety,  the  warning  voice  of  duty,  the  perfect 
absence  of  temptation.  And  as  Kowland  looked  along 
the  arch  of  silvered  shadow  and  out  into  the  lucid  air  of  the 
American  night,  which  seemed  so  doubly  vast,  somehow, 
and  strange  and  nocturnal,  he  felt  like  declaring "  that  here 
was  beauty  too — beauty  sufficient  for  an  artist  not  to 
starve  upon  it.  As  he  stood  there  lost  in  the  darkness, 
he  presently  heard  a  rapid  tread  on  the  other  side  of  the 
road,  accompanied  by  a  loud  jubilant  whistle,  and  in  a 
moment  a  figure  emerged  into  an  open  gap  of  moonshine. 
He  had  no  difficulty  in  recognising  Hudson,  who  was  pre- 
sumably returning  from  a  visit  to  Cecilia.  Roderick 
stopped  suddenly  and  stared  up  at  the  moon,  with  his 
face  vividly  illumined.      He  broke  out  into  a  snatch  of 

song — 

•'  The  splendour  falls  on  castle  walls 
And  snowy  summits  old  in  story  ! " 

And  with  a  great  musical  roll  of  his  voice  he  went  swing- 
ing off  into  the  darkness  again,  as  if  his  thoughts  had 
lent  him  wings.  He  was  dreaming  of  the  inspiration  of 
foreign  lands — of  castled  crags  and  historic  landscapes. 
What  a  pity  after  all,  thought  Rowland,  as  he  went  his 
own  way,  that  he  shouldn't  have  a  taste  of  it ! 


lY. 

It  had  been  a  very  just  remark  of  Cecilia's  that  Roderick 
would  change  with  a  change  in  his  circumstances.  Row- 
land had  telegraphed  to  New  York  for  another  berth  on 
his  steamer,  and  from  the  hour  the  answer  came  Hudson's 
spirits  rose  to  incalculable  heights.  He  was  radiant  with 
good  humour,  and  his_jcharming  gaiety  seemed  the  .pledge 
of  a  brilliant  future.     He  had  forgiven  his  old   enemies 

-  D 


50  ROI)f:RICK  HULSON. 

and  forf^^otton  liis  old  gricvunces  — he  seemed  every  way 
recoricilod  to  a  world  iu  which  ho  was  going  to  count  as  an 
active  force.  He  was  inexhaustibly  jocose  and  suggestive, 
and  as  Cecilia  said,  he  had  suddenly  become  so  good  that 
it  was  only  to  be  feared  he  was  going  to  start  not  for  the 
Old  World,  but  for  the  Next !  He  took  long  walks  with 
Rowland,  who  felt  more  and  more  the  fascination  of  his 
brilliant  disposition.  Rowland  returned  several  times  to 
Mrs.  Hudson's,  and  found  the  two  ladies  doing  their  best 
to  be  happy  in  their  companion's  happiness,  Mary  Gar- 
land, he  thought,  was  succeeding  better  than  her  demean- 
our on  his  lirst  visit  had  promised.  He  tried  to  have  some 
especial  talk  with  her,  but  her  extreme  reserve  forced  him 
to  content  himself  with  such  response  to  his  rather  urgent 
overtures  as  might  be  extracted  from  a  keenly  attentive 
smile.  It  must  be  confessed  however  that  if  the  response 
was  vague,  the  satisfaction  was  great,  and  that  Rowland 
after  his  second  visit  kept  seeing  a  lui-king  reflection  of 
this  smile  in  the  most  unexpected  places.  It  seemed 
strange  that  she  should  please  him  so  well  at  so  slender 
a  cost ;  but  please  him  she  did,  extraordinarily,  and  his 
pleasure  had  a  quality  altogether  new  to  him.  It  made 
him  restless  and  a  trifle  melancholy ;  he  walked  about 
absently,  wondering  and  wishing.  He  wondered  among 
other  things  why  fate  should  have  condemned  him  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  a  girl  whom  he  would  make 
a  sacrifice  to  know  better,  just  as  he  was  leaving  the 
country  for  years.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  turning 
his  back  on  a  chance  of  happiness — happiness  of  a  sort 
of  which  the  slenderest  germ  should  be  cultivated.  He 
asked  himself  whether,  feeling  as  he  did,  if  he  had  only 
himself  to  please  he  should  give  up  his  journey  and — wait. 
He  had  Roderick  to  please  now,  for  whom  disappointment 
would  be  cruel ;  but  he  said  to  himself  that  certainly  had 
there  been  no  Roderick  in  the  case  the  ship  should  sail 
without  him.  He  asked  Hudson  several  questions  about 
his  cousin,  but  Roderick,  confidential  on  most  points, 
seemed  to  have  reasons  of  his  own  for  being  reticent  on 
this  one.  His  measured  answers  quickened  Rowland's 
curiosity,  for  the  girl,  with  her  irritating  half-suggestions, 
had  only  to  be  a  subject  of  guarded  allusion  in  others  to 
become  intolerably  interesting.     He  learned  from  Roderick 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  51 

that  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  country  minister,  a  far- 
away cousin  of  his  mother,  settled  in  another  part  of  the 
State  ;  that  she  was  one  of  a  half-a-dozen  daughters,  that 
the  family  was  very  poor,  and  that  she  had  come  a  couple 
of  months  before  to  pay  his  mother  a  long  visit.  "  It  is 
to  be  a  very  long  one  now,"  he  said,  "for  it  is  settled  that 
she  is  to  remain  while  I  am  away." 

The  fermentation  of  contentment  in  Roderick's  soul 
reached  its  climax  a  few  days  before  the  young  men  were 
to  make  their  farewells.  He  had  been  sitting  with  his 
friends  on  Cecilia's  verandah,  but  for  half  an  hour  past 
he  had  said  nothing.  Lounging  back  against  a  column 
muffled  in  creepers,  and  gazing  idly  at  the  stars,  he  kept 
carolling  softly  to  himself  with  that  indifference  to  ceremony 
for  which  he  always  found  allowance,  though  it  had  nothing 
conciliatory  but  what  his  good  looks  gave  it.  At  last, 
springing  up—"  I  want  to  strike  out  hard  !  "  he  exclaimed. 
"  I  want  to  do  something  violent,  to  let  off  steam !  " 

"I'll  tell  you  what  to  do,  this  lovely  weather,"  said 
Cecilia.  "  Give  a  picnic.  It  can  be  as  violent  as  you 
please,  and  it  will  have  the  merit  of  leading  oft'  our  over 
emotion  into  a  safe  channel,  as  well  as  yours." 

Roderick  laughed  uproariously  at  Cecilia's  very  practical 
remedy  for  his  sentimental  need,  but  a  couple  of  days  later 
nevertheless  the  picnic  was  given.  It  was  to  be  a  family 
party,  but  Roderick  in  his  magnanimous  geniality  insisted 
on  inviting  Mr.  Striker,  a  decision  which  Rowland  mentally 
applauded.  "  And  we  will  have  Mrs.  Striker  too,"  he 
said,  "  if  she  will  come,  to  keep  my  mother  in  countenance  ; 
and  at  any  rate  we  will  have  Miss  Striker — the  divine 
Petronilla !  "  The  young  lady  thus  denominated  formed 
with  Mrs.  Hudson,  Miss  (garland  and  Cecilia  the  feminine 
half  of  the  company.  Mr.  Striker  presented  himself, 
sacrificing  a  morning's  work,  with  a  magnanimity  greater 
even  than  Roderick's,  and  foreign  support  was  further 
secured  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Whitefoot,  the  young 
Orthodox  minister.  Roderick  had  chosen  the  feasting 
place ;  he  knew  it  well  and  had  passed  many  a  summer 
afternoon  there,  lying  at  his  length  on  the  grass  and  gazing 
at  the  blue  undulations  of  the  horizon.  It  was  a  meadow 
on  the  edge  of  a  wood,  with  mossy  rocks  protruding  through 
the  grass  and  a  little  lake  on  the  other  side.  It  was  a 
^  D  2 


52  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

cloiullfsR  Aufjust  day  ;  Kowland  always  remembered  it, 
jiiid  tho  sct'iu',  jiiid  every thiii<:  tli:it  was  said  and  done,  with 
extraordinary  distinctness.  Roderick  surpassed  himself  in 
friendly  JT)llity,  and  at  one  moment,  when  exhilaration  was 
at  the  hi^diest,  was  seen  in  Mr.  Striker's  high  white  hat, 
drinking  cham})agTie  from  a  broken  tea-cup  to  Mr.  Striker's 
health.  Miss  Striker  had  her  father's  pale  blue  eye;  she 
was  dressed  as  if  she  had  been  going  to  sit  for  her  photo- 
gra])h,  and  remained  for  a  long  time  with  Roderick  on  a 
little  })romontory  overhanging  the  lake.  Mrs.  Hudson  sat 
all  day  with  a  little  meek  apprehensive  smile.  She  was 
afraid  of  an  "  accident,"  though  unless  Miss  Striker  (who 
indeed  was  a  little  of  a  romp)  should  push  Roderick  into  the 
lake,  it  was  hard  to  see  what  accident  could  occur.  Mrs. 
Hudson  was  as  neat  and  crisp  and  uncrumpled  at  the  end 
of  the  festival  as  at  the  beginning.  Mr.  Whitefoot,  who 
but  a  twelvemonth  later  became  a  convert  to  Episcopacy 
and  was  already  cultivating  a  certain  conversational 
sonority,  devoted  himself  to  Cecilia.  He  had  a  little  book 
in  his  pocket,  out  of  which  he  read  to  her  at  intervals, 
lying  stretched  at  her  feet ;  and  it  was  a  lasting  joke  with 
Clecilia  afterwards  that  she  would  never  tell  Avhat  Mr. 
Whitefoot's  little  book  had  been.  Rowland  had  placed 
himself  near  Miss  Garland  while  the  feasting  went  forward 
on  the  grass.  She  wore  a  so-called  gipsy  hat — a  little 
straw  hat,  tied  down  over  her  ears,  so  as  to  cast  her  eyes 
into  shadow,  by  a  ribbon  passing  outside  of  it.  When  the 
company  dispersed  after  lunch,  he  proposed  to  her  to  take 
a  stroll  in  the  wood.  She  hesitated  a  moment  and  looked 
towards  Mrs.  Hudson,  as  if  for  permission  to  leave  her. 
But  Mrs.  Hudson  was  listening  to  Mr.  Striker,  who  sat 
gossiping  to  her  with  relaxed  consistency,  his  waistcoat 
unbuttoned  and  his  hat  on  his  nose. 

"  You  can  give  your  cousin  your  society  at  any  time," 
said  Rowland.  "  But  me  perhaps  you  will  never  see 
again." 

"  Why  then  should  we  wish  to  be  friends,  if  nothing  is 
to  come  of  it  1 "  she,jisked,  with,  homely  logic.  But  by  this 
time  she  had  consented,  and  they  were  treading  the  fallen 
pine-needles. 

"  Oh,  one  must  take  all  one  can  get,"  said  Rowland.  "  If 
we  can  be  friends  for  half  an  hour  it's  so  much  gained." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  53 

"  Do  you  expect  never  to  come  back  to  Northampton 
again  ^ 

"  '  Never '  is  a  good  deal  to  say.  But  I  go  to  Europe 
for  a  long  stay." 

"  Do  you  prefer  it  so  much  to  your  own  country  1 " 

"  I  will  not  say  that.  But  I  have  the  misfortune  to  be 
a  rather  idle  man,  and  in  Europe  the  burden  of  idleness  is 
less  heavy  than  here." 

She  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes  ;  then  at  last,  "  In 
that  then  we  are  better  than  Europe,"  she  said.  To  a 
certain  point  Rowland  agreed  with  her,  but  he  demurred, 
to  make  her  say  more. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better,"  she  asked,  "to  work  to  get 
reconciled  to  America  than  to  go  to  Europe  to  get  recon- 
ciled to  idleness  1  " 

"  Doubtless ;  but  you  know  work  is  hard  to  find." 

"  I  come  from  a  little  place  where  every  one  has  plenty," 
said  Mary  Garland.  "We  all  work;  every  one  I  know 
works.  And  really,"  she  added  presently,  "  I  look  at  you 
with  curiosity ;  you  are  the  first  unoccupied  man  I  ever 
saw." 

"  Don't  look  at  me  too  hard,"  said  Rowland,  smiling. 
"  I  shall  sink  into  the  earth.  What  is  the  name  of  your 
little  place  1  " 

"  West  Nazareth,"  said  Mary  Garland  with  her  usual 
directness.  "It  is  not  so  very  little,  though  it's  smaller 
than  Northampton." 

"  I  wonder  whether  I  could  find  any  work  at  West 
Nazareth,"  Rowland  said. 

"  You  would  not  like  it,"  Miss  Garland  declared  re- 
tlectively.  "  Though  there  are  far  finer  woods  there  than 
this.     We  have  miles  and  miles  of  woods." 

"  I  might  chop  down  trees,"  said  Rowland.  "  That  is 
if  you  allow  it." 

"  Allow  it  ?  Why,  where  should  we  get  our  fire-wood  1  " 
Then  noticing  that  he  had  spoken  jestingly  she  glanced  at 
him  askance,  though  with  no  visible  diminution  of  her 
g'ravity.  \  "Don't  you  know  how  to  do  anything?  Have 
you  no  profession  V 

Rowland  shook  his  head.     "  Absolutely  none." 

"'  What  do  you  do  all  day  1  " 

"Nothing  worth  relating.     That's  why  I  am  going  to 


54  KODKRICK  HUDSON. 

Kurojie.  Thero  at  loji.sL  if  I  do  iiothiu<(  1  shall  see  a  great 
deal  ;  and  if_^^  am  not  a  producer  I  ^^hall  at  any  rate  be 
an  ol)servej;:/]^' 

"  <  'ant  we  observe  everywhere  1  " 

"  Certainly  ;  and  I  really  think  that  in  that  way  I  make 
the  most  of  my  opportunities.  Though  I  confess,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  that  I  often  remember  there  are  things  to  be  seen 
here  to  which  I  probai)ly  have  not  done  justice.  I  should 
like,  for  instance,  to  see  West  Nazareth." 

She  looked  round  at  him,  open-eyed ;  not  apparently 
that  she  exac^tly  supposed  he  was  jesting,  for  the  expression 
of  such  a  desire  wjvs  not  necessarily  facetious  ;  but  as  if 
he  must  have  spoken  with  an  ulterior  motive.  In  fact,  he 
had  spoken  from  the  simplest  of  motives.  The  girl  beside 
him  pleased  him  immensely,  and  suspecting  that  her  charm 
was  es.sentially  her  own  and  not  rellected  from  social  cir- 
cumstance, he  wished  to  give  himself  the  satisfaction  of 
contrasting  her  with  the  meagre  influences  of  her  education. 
Miss  Carland's  second  movement  was  to  take  him  at  his 
word.  "  Since  you  are  free  to  do  as  you  please,  why  don't 
you  go  there  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  free  to  do  as  I  please  now.  1  have  offered 
your  cousin  to  bear  him  company  to  Europe,  he  has  accepted 
with  enthusiasm,  and  I  can't  back  out." 

"  Are  you  going  to  Europe  simply  for  his  sake  1  " 

Rowland  hesitated  for  a  moment.  "  I  think  I  may 
almost  say  so." 

Mary  Garland  walked  along  in  silence.  "Do  you 
mean  to  do  a  great  deal  for  him?"  she  asked  at 
last. 

"  \V  hat  I  can.  But  my  power  of  helping  him  is  veiy 
small  beside  his  power  of  helping  himself." 

For  a  moment  she  was  silent  again.  "  You  are  very 
generous,"  she  said,  almost  solemnly. 

"No,  I  am  simply  very  shrewd.  Roderick  will  repay 
me.  It's  a  speculation.  At  first,  I  think,"  he  added 
shortly  afterwards,  "you  would  not  have  paid  me  that 
little  compliment.     You  didn't  believe  in  me." 

She  made  no  attempt  to  deny  it.  "I  didn't  see  why 
you  should  wish  to  make  Roderick  discontented.  I  thought 
you  were  rather  frivolous." 

"  You  did  me  injustice.     I  don't  think  I  am  that." 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  65 

"It  was  because  you  are  unlike  other  men — those  at 
least  whom  I  have  seen." 

"  In  what  way  1  " 
iJ^Why,  as  you  describe  yourself.     You  have  no  duties, 
no  profession,  no  home.     You  live  for  your  pleasure." 

''  That's  all  very  true.  And  yet  I  maintain  I  am  not 
frivolous." 

"  I  hope  not,"  said  Mary  Garland  simply.  They  had 
reached  a  point  where  the  wood-path  forked  and  put  forth 
two  divergent  tracks  which  lost  themselves  in  a  verdurous 
tangle.  The  young  girl  seemed  to  think  that  the  difficulty 
of  choice  between  them  was  a  reason  for  giving  them  up 
and  turning  back.  Rowland  thought  otherwise,  and 
detected  agreeable  grounds  for  preference  in  the  left-hand 
path.  As  a  compromise,  they  sat  down  on  a  fallen  log. 
Looking  about  him,  Howland  espied  a  curious  wild  shrub, 
with  a  spotted  crimson  leaf ;  he  went  and  plucked  a  spray 
of  it  and  brought  it  to  his  companion.  He  had  never 
observed  it  before,  but  she  immediately  called  it  by  its 
name.  She  expressed  surprise  at  his  not  knowing  it ;  it 
was  estremely  common.  He  presently  brought  her  a 
specimen  of  another  delicate  plant,  with  a  little  blue- 
streaked  flower.  "  I  suppose  that's  common  too,"  he  said, 
"  but  I  have  never  seen  it — or  noticed  it  at  least."  She 
answered  that  this  one  was  rare,  and  meditated  a  moment 
before  she  could  remember  its  name.  At  last  she  re- 
called it  and  expressed  surprise  at  his  having  found  the 
plant  in  the  woods  ;  she  supposed  it  grew  only  in  the 
marshes.  Rowland  complimented  her  on  her  fund  of 
useful  information. 

"  It's  not  especially  useful,"  she  answered  ;  "  but  I  like 
to  know  the  name  of  plants  as  I  do  those  of  my  acquaint- 
ances. When  we  walk  in  the  woods  at  home — which  we 
do  so  much — it  seems  as  unnatural  not  to  know  what  to 
call  the  flowers  as  it  would  be  to  see  some  one  in  the  town 
mth  whom  we  should  not  be  on  speaking  terms." 

''  Ap'opos  of  frivolity,"  Rowland  said,  "I  am  sure  you 
yourself  have  very  little  of  it,  unless  at  West  Nazareth 
it  is  considered  frivolous  to  walk  in  the  woods  and  nod  to 
the  nodding  flowers.  Do  kindly  tell  me  a  little  about 
yourself."  And  to  compel  her  to  begin,  "  I  know  you  come 
of  a  race  of  theologians,"  he  went  on. 


66  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"No,"  she  replied,  deliberating;  "they  are  not  theolo- 
gians, though  they  are  ministers.  We  don't  take  a  very 
firm  stand  upon  doctrine  ;  we  are  practical  rather*  We 
write  sermons  and  preach  them,  but  we  do  a  great  deal 
of  hard  work  besides." 

"  And  of  this  hard  work  what  has  your  share  been  1 " 

"  The  hardest  part — doing  nothing." 

"  What  do  you  call  nothing  1  " 

"  I  taught  some  small  children  their  lessons  once ;  I 
must  make  the  most  of  that.  But  I  confess  I  didn't  like 
it.  Otherwise,  I  have  only  done  little  things  at  home,  as 
they  turned  up." 

"  What  kind  of  things  1  " 

"  Oh,  every  kind.  If  you  had  seen  my  home  you  would 
understand." 

Rowland  would  have  liked  to  make  her  specify  ;  but  he 
felt  a  sort  of  luxurious  pleasure  in  being  discreet.  "  To 
be  happy,  I  imagine,"  he  contented  himself  with  saying, 
"  you  need  to  be  occupied.  You  need  to  have  something  to 
expend  yourself  upon." 

"That  is  not  so  true  as  it  once  was;  now  that  I  am 
older  I  am  sure  I  am  less  impatient  of  leisure.  Certainly 
these  two  months  that  I  have  been  with  Mrs.  Hudson  I 
have  had  a  terrible  amount  of  it.  And  yet  I  have  liked 
it  !  And  now  that  I  am  probably  to  be  with  her  all  the 
while  that  her  son  is  away,  I  look  forward  to  more  with 
dreadful  resignation." 

"It  is  settled  then  that  you  are  to  remain  with  your 
cousin  1  " 

"  It  depends  upon  their  writing  from  home  that  I  may 
stay.  But  that  is  probable.  Only  I  must  not  forget,"  she 
said,  rising,  "  that  the  groujid  for  my  doing  so  is  that  she 
shall  not  be  left  alone." 

"  I  am  glad  to  know  that  I  shall  probably  often  hear 
about  you.  I  assure  you  I  shall  often  think  about  you  !  " 
These  words  of  Rowland's  were  half  impulsive,  half  deli- 
berate. They  were  the  simple  truth,  and  he  had  asked 
himself  why  he  should  not  tell  her  the  truth.  And  yet 
they  were  not-  all  of  it ;  her  hearing  the  rest  would  depend 
upon  the  way  she  received  this.  She  received  it  not  only, 
as  Rowland  foresaw,  without  a  shadow  of  coquetry,  of  any 
apparent  thought  of  listening  to  it  gracefully,  but  with  a 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  57 

slight  movement  of  nervous  deprecation  which  seemed  to 
betray  itself  in  the  quickening  of  her  step.  Evidently, 
if  Rowland  was  to  take  pleasure  in  hearing  about  her,  it 
would  have  to  be  a  highly  disinterested  pleasure.  She 
answered  nothing,  and  Rowland  too,  as  he  walked  beside 
her,  was  silent ;  but  as  he  looked  along  the  shadow- woven 
wood-path,  what  he  was  really  facing  was  a  levej  three 
years  of  disinterestedness.  He  ushered  them  in  by  talking 
composed  civility  until  he  had  brought  Miss  Garland  back 
to  her  companions. 

He  saw  her  but  once  again.  He  was  obliged  to  be  in 
New  York  a  couple  of  days  before  sailing,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  Roderick  should  overtake  him  at  the  last 
moment.  The  evening  before  he  left  Northampton  he  went 
to  say  farewell  to  Mrs.  Hudson.  The  ceremony  was  brief. 
Rowland  soon  perceived  that  the  poor  little  lady  was  in 
the  melting  mood,  and  as  he  dreaded  her  tears  he  compressed 
a  multitude  of  solemn  promises  into  a  silent  hand-shake 
and  took  his  leave.  Mary  Garland  she  had  told  him  was 
in  the  back-garden  with  Roderick;  he  might  go  out  to 
them.  He  did  so,  and  as  he  drew  near  he  heard  Roderick's 
high-pitched  voice  ringing  behind  the  shrubbery.  In  a 
moment,  emerging,  he  found  the  girl  leaning  against  a  tree, 
with  her  cousin  before  her  talking  with  great  emphasis. 
He  asked  pardon  for  interrupting  them  and  said  he  wished 
only  to  bid  her  good-bye.  She  gave  him  her  hand  and  he 
held  it  an  instant,  saying  nothing.  "  Don't  forget,"  he 
said  to  Roderick  as  he  turned  away.  "  And  don't,  in 
this  company,  repent  of  your  bargain." 

"  I  shall  not  let  him,"  said  Mary  Garland,  with  some- 
thing very  like  gaiety.  "  I  shall  see  that  he  is  punctual. 
He  must  go  !  I  owe  you  an  apology  for  having  doubted 
that  he  ought  to  go  !  "  And  in  spite  of  the  dusk,  Rowland 
could  see  that  she  had  even  a  sweeter  smile  than  he  had 
supposed. 

Roderick  was  punctual,  eagerly  punctual,  and  they  went. 
Rowland  for  several  days  was  occupied  with  material  cares, 
and  lost  sight  of  his  sentimental  perplexities.  But  they 
only  slumbered  and  they  were  sharply  awakened.  The 
weather  was  fine,  and  the  two  young  men  always  sat  together 
upon  deck  late  into  the  evening.  One  night,  towards  the 
last,  they  were  at  the  stern  of  the  great  ship,  watching  her 


58  RODEUICK  HUDSON. 

grind  the  solid  blackness  of  the  ocean  into  phosphorescent 
foam.  They  talked  on  these  occasions  of  everything  con- 
ceivable, and  had  the  air  of  having  no  secrets  from  eiich 
other.  But  it  was  on  Roderick's  conscience  that  this  air 
belied  him,  and  he  was  too  frank  by  nature,  moreover,  for 
permanent  reticence  on  any  point. 

"  I  must  tell  you  something,"  he  said  at  last.  "  I  should 
like  you  to  know  it,  and  you  will  be  so  glad  to  know  it. 
Besides,  it's  only  a  question  of  time  ;  three  months  hence 
probably  you  would  have  guessed  it.  I  am  engaged  to 
Mary  Garland." 

Rowland  sat  staring ;  though  the  sea  was  calm  it  seemed 
to  him  that  the  ship  gave  a  great  dizzying  lurch.  But  in 
a  moment  he  contrived  to  answer  coherently — "  Engaged  to 
Mary  Garland  !    I  never  supposed — -I  never  imagined — " 

"  That  I  was  in  love  with  her?  "  Roderick  interrupted. 
"  Neither  did  I  until  this  last  fortnight.  But  you  came 
and  put  me  into  such  ridiculous  good-humour  that  I  felt 
an  extraordinary  desire  to  tell  some  woman  that  I  adored 
her.  Mary  Garland  is  a  magnificent  girl ;  you  know  her 
too  little  to  do  her  justice.  I  have  been  quietly  learning 
to  know  her  these  past  three  months,  and  have  been  fall- 
ing in  love  with  her  without  suspecting  it.  It  appeared 
when  I  spoke  to  her  that  she  thought  me  a  charming 
fellow  1  So  the  thing  was  settled.  I  must  of  course  make 
some  money  before  we  can  marry.  It's  rather  awkward, 
certainly,  to  engage  one's  self  to  a  girl  whom  one  is  going 
to  leave  for  yciirs  the  next  day.  We  shall  be  condemned 
for  some  time  to  come  to  do  a  terrible  deal  of  abstract 
thinking  about  each  other.  But  I  wanted  her  blessing  and 
I  couldn't  help  asking  for  it.  Unless  a  man  is  unnaturally 
selfish  he  needs  to  work  for  some  one  else  than  himself, 
and  I  am  sure  I  shall  run  a  smoother  and  swifter  course 
for  knowing  that  that  capital  creature  is  waiting  at 
Northampton  for  news  of  my  greatness.  If  ever  I  am 
a  dull  companion  and  over-addicted  to  moping,  remember 
in  justice  to  me  that  I  am  in  love,  and  that  my  sweetheart 
is  five  thousand  miles  away." 

Rowland  listened  to  all  this  with  a  feeling  that  fortune 
had  played  him  an  elaborately-devised  trick.  It  had  lured 
him  out  into  mid-ocean  and  smoothed  the  sea  and  stilled 
the  winds  and  given  him  a  singularly  sympathetic  comrade, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  59 

and  then  it  had  turned  and  delivered  him  a  thumping  blow 
in  mid-chest.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  after  an  attempt  at  the  usual 
formal  conojratulation,  "  you  certainly  ought  to  do  better — 
with  Miss  Garland  waiting  for  you  at  Northampton  !  " 

Roderick,  now  that  he  had  broken  ground,  was  elotjuent, 
and  rung  a  hundred  changes  on  the  assurance  that  he  was 
a  very  happy  man.  Then  at  last,  suddenly,  his  climax  was 
a  yawn,  and  he  declared  that  he  must  go  to  bed.  Rowland 
let    him    ^o    alone,   and    sat    there  late    between    sea    and 

sky- 


One  warm  still  day,  late  in  the  Roman  autumn,  our  two 
young  men  were  sitting  beneath  one  of  the  high-stemmed 
pines  of  the  Yilla  Ludovisi.     They  had  been  spending  an 
hour  in  the  mouldy  little  garden-house  where  the  colossal 
mask  of  the  famous  Juno  looks  out  with  blank  eyes  from 
that  dusky  corner  which  must  seem  to  her  the  last  possible 
stage  of  a  lapse  from  Olympus.     Then  they  had  wandered 
out  into  the  gardens,  and  were  lounging  away  the  morning 
under  the  spell  of  their  magical  picturesqueness.    Roderick 
declared  that  he  would  go  nowhere  else ;  that  after  the 
Juno  it  was  a  profanation  to  look  at  anything  but  sky  and 
trees.    I  There  was  a  fresco  of  Guercino,  to  which  Rowland, 
though  he  had  seen  it  on  his  former  visit  to  Rome,  went 
dutifully  to  pay  his  respects.     But  Roderick,  though  he 
had  never  seen  it,  declared  that  it  couldn't  be  worth  a  fig, 
and  that  he  didn't  care  to  look  at  ugly  things.     He  re- 
mained stretched  on  his  overcoat,  which  he  had  spread  on 
the  grass,  while  Rowland  went  off  envying  the  intellectual 
comfort  of  genius  which  can  arrive  at  serene  conclusions 
without  disagreeable  processes.      When   the  latter   came 
back,  his  friend  was  sitting  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees 
and  his  head  in  his  hands.     Rowland,  in  the  geniality  of 
a  mood  attuned  to  the  mellow  charm  of   a  Roman  villa, 
found  a  good  word  to  say  for  the  Guercino  ;  but  he  chiefly 
talked  of  the  view  from  'the  little  belvedere  on  the  roof  of 


60  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  casino  and  how  it  looked  like  the  prospect  from  a  castle 
turret  in  a  fairy  tale. 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Roderick,  throwing  himself  back 
with  a  yawn.  "  But  I  must  let  it  pass.  I  have  seen 
enough  for  the  present ;  I  have  reached  the  top  of  the  hill. 
I  have  an  indigestion  of  impressions ;  I  must  work  them 
off  before  I  go  in  for  any  more.  I  don't  want  to  look  at 
any  more  of  other  people's  works  for  a  month — not  even 
at  Nature's  own.  I  want  to  look  at  Roderick  Hudson's  ! 
The  result  of  it  all  is  that  I  am  not  afraid.  I  can  but  try, 
as  well  as  the  rest  of  them  !  The  fellow  who  did  that 
gazing  goddess  yonder  only  made  an  experiment.  The 
other  day,  when  1  was  looking  at  Michael  Angelo's  Moses, 
I  was  seized  with  a  kind  of  defiance — a  reaction  against 
all  this  mere  passive  enjoyment  of  grandeur.  It  was  a 
rousing  great  success,  certainly,  that  sat  there  before  me, 
but  somehow  it  was  not  an  inscrutable  mystery,  and  it 
seemed  to  me,  not  perhaps  that  I  should  some  day  do  as 
well,  but  that  at  least  I  might  I  " 

"  As  you  say,  you  can  but  try,"  said  Rowland.  ^'  Success 
is  only  passionate  effort." 

"  Well,  the  passion  is  blazing  ;  we  have  been  piling  on 
fuel  handsomely.  It  came  over  me  just  now  that  it  is 
exactly  three  months  to  a  day  since  I  left  Northampton. 
I  can't  believe  it !  " 

"  It  certainly  seems  more." 

•*  It  seems  like  ten  years.  What  an  exquisite  ass  I 
was  !  " 

"  Do  you  feel  so  wise  now  %  " 

"  Verily  !  Don't  I  look  so  1  Surely  I  haven't  the  same 
face.  Haven't  I  a  different  eye,  a  different  expression, 
a  different  voice  %  " 

"  I  can  hardly  say,  because  I  have  watched  the  trans- 
formation. But  it's  very  likely.  You  are  in  the  literal 
sense  of  the  word  more  civilised.  I  dare  say,"  added 
Rowland,  "  that  Miss  (^arland  would  think  so." 

"  That's  not  what  she  would  call  it ;  she  would  say  I  am 
coxru.pted.j^' ' 

Rowland  asked  few  questions  about  Mary  Garland,  but 
he  always  listened  narrowly  to  his  companion's  voluntary 
observations.     "  Are  you  very  sure  ?  "  he  replied. 

"  Why,  she's  a  stern  moralist,  and  she  would  infer  fmm 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  (^P 

my  appearance  that  I  had  become  a  gilded  profligate." 
E)oderick  had  in  fact  a  Venetian  watch-chain  round  his 
neck  and  a  magnificent  Roman  intaglio  on  the  third  finger 
of  his  left  hand. 

"  Shall  you  think  I  take  a  liberty,"  asked  Rowland,  "  if 
I  say  you  judge  her  superficially  1  " 

"  For  heaven's  sake,"  cried  Roderick  laughing,  "  don't 
tell  me  she's  not  a  moralist  !  It  was  for  that  I  fell  in  love 
with  her — and  with  rigid  virtue  in  her  person." 

"  She  is  a  moralist,  but  not  as  you  imply  a  narrow  one. 
That's  more  than  a  difference  in  degree  ;  it's  a  difference  in  , 
kind.  I  don't  know  whether  I  ever  mentioned  it,  but  I 
have  a  great  notion  of  Miss  Garland.  There  is  nothing 
narrow  about  her  but  her  experience ;  everything  else  is 
large.  My  impression  of  her  is  that  she  is  very  intelligent, 
but  that  she  has  never  had  a  chance  to  prove  it.  Some 
da}^  or  other  I  am  sure  she  will  judge  fairly  and  wisely  of 
everything." 

"  Stay  a  bit  !  "  cried  Roderick  ;  "  you  are  a  better  Catholic 
than  the  Pope.  I  shall  be  content  if  she  judges  fairly  of 
nie — of  my  merits,  that  is.  The  rest  she  must  not  judge 
at  all.  She's  a  grimly  devoted  little  creature ;  may  she 
always  remain  so  !  Changed  as  I  am,  I  adore  her  none 
the  less.  What  becomes  of  all  our  emotions,  our  im- 
pressions," he  went  on  after  a  long  pause,  "  all  the  material 
of  thought  that  life  pours  into  us  at  such  a  rate  during 
such  a  memorable  three  months  as  these  ?  There  are 
twenty  moments  a  week — a  day,  for  that  matter,  some 
days — that  seem  supreme,  twenty  impressions  that  seem 
ultimate,  that  appear  to  form  an  intellectuaU  era.  But 
others  come  treading  on  their  heels  and  sweeping  them 
along,  and  they  all  melt  like  water  into  water  and  settle 
the  question  of  precedence  among  themselves.  The 
curious  thing  is  that  the  more  the  mind  takes  in,  the  more 
it  has  space  for,  and  that  all  one's  ideas  are  like  the  Irish 
people  at  home  who  live  in  the  different  corners  of  a  room 
and  ta,ke  boarders." 

"  I  fancy  it  is  our  peculiar  good  luck  that  we  don't  see 
the  limits  of  our  minds,"  said  Rowland.  "  We  are  young, 
compared  with  what  we  may  one  day  be.  That  belongs 
to  youth ;  it  is  perhaps  the  best  part  of  it.  They  say 
that   old  people  do  find   themselves   at   last  face  to  face 


62  KOI>ERICK  HUDSON. 

with  a  solid  blaiik  wall  and  stand  thumping  against  it  in 
vain.  It  resounds,  it  seems  to  have  something  beyond  it, 
but  it  won't  move  !  That's  only  a  reason  for  living  with 
open  doors  as  long  as  we  can !  " 

"  Open  doors  i  "  murmured  Roderick.  "  Yes,  let  us  close 
no  doors  that  open  upon  Rome.  For  this,  for  the  mind,  is 
eternal  warm  weather  !  But  though  my  doors  may  stand 
open  to-day,"  he  presently  added,  "  I  shall  see  no  visitors. 
I  want  to  pause  and  bieathe ;  I  want  to  dream  of  a  statue. 
I  have  been  working  hard  for  three  months ;  I  have  earned 
a  right  to  a  reverie." 

Rowland,  on  his  side,  was  not  without  provision  for 
reflection,  and  they  lingered  on  in  gentle  desultory  gossip. 
Rowland  felt  the  need  for  intellectual  rest,  for  a  truce  to 
present  care  for  churches,  statues,  and  pictures  on  even 
better  grounds  than  his  companion,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
really  been  living  Roderick's  intellectual  life  the  past  three 
months  as  well  as  his  own.  As  he  looked  back  on  these 
animated  weeks  he  drew  a  long  breath  of  satisfaction — 
almost  of  relief.  Roderick  so  far  had  justified  his  con- 
fidence and  flattered  his  perspicacity ;  he  was  giving  a 
splendid  account  of  himself.  He  was  changed  even  more 
than  he  himself  suspected ;  he  had  stepped  without 
faltering  into  his  birthright,  and  was  spending  money, 
intellectually,  as  lavishly  as  a  young  heir  who  has  just 
won  an  obstructive  lawsuit.  Roderick's  glance  and  voice 
were  the  same,  doubtless,  as  when  they  enlivened  the 
summer  dusk  on  Cecilia's  verandah,  but  in  his  person 
generally  there  was  an  indefinable  expression  of  experience 
rapidly  and  easily  assimilated.  Rowland  had  been  struck 
at  the  outset  with  the  instinctive  quickness  of  his  obser- 
vation and  his  free  appropriation  of  whatever  might  serve 
his  purpose.  He  had  not  been  for  instance  half  an  hour 
on  English  soil  before  he  perceived  that  he  was  dressed 
provincially,  and  he  had  immediately  reformed  his  toilet' 
with  the  most  unerring  tact.  His  appetite  for  novelty  was 
insatiable,  and  for  everything  characteristically  foreign, 
\>y^  I  as  it  presented  itself,  he  had  iin  extravagant  greeting;  but 
in  half  an  hour  the  novelty  had  faded,  he  had  guessed  the 
secret,  he  had  plucked  out  the  heart  of  the  mystery  and 
was  clamouring  for  a  keener  sensation.  At  the  end  of  a 
month  he  presented  a  puzzling  spectacle  to  his  companion. 


EODEPJCK  HUDSON.  63 

He  had  caught  instinctively  the  key-note  of  the  Old  World. 
He  observed  and  enjoyed,  he  criticised  and  rhapsodised,  but 
though  all  things  interested  him  and  many  delighted  him, 
none  surprised  him ;  he  invented  short  cuts  and  anticipated 
the  unexpected.  Witnessing  the  rate  at  which  he  did 
intellectual  execution  on  the  general  spectacle  of  European 
]ife,  Rowland  at  moments  felt  vaguely  uneasy  for  the 
future ;  the  boy  was  living  too  fast,  he  would  have  said, 
and  giving  alarming  pledges  to  ennui  in  his  later  yen.rs. 
But  we  must  live  as  our  pulses  are  timed,  and  Roderick's 
struck  the  hour  very  often.  He  was  by  imagination, 
though  he  never  became  in  manner,  a  natural  man  of  the 
world ;  he  had  intuitively,  as  an  artist,  what  one  may  call 
the  historic  consciousness.  He  asked  Rowland  questions 
which  this  halting  dilettante  was  quite  unable  to  answer, 
and  of  which  he  was  equally  unable  to  conceive  where  he 
had  picked  up  the  data,  Roderick  ended  by  answering 
them  himself,  tolerably  to  his  satisfaction,  and  in  a  short 
time  he  had  almost  turned  the  tables,  and  become  in  their 
walks  and  talks  the  accredited  fountain  of  criticism. 
Rowland  took  a  generous  pleasure  in  his  companion's 
confident  coup  d'ceil ;  Roderick  was  so  much  younger  than 
he  himself  had  ever  been !  Surely  youth  and  genius  hand 
in  hand  were  the  most  beautiful  sight  in  the  world. 
Roderick  added  to  this  the  charm  of  his  more  immediately 
personal  qualities.  The  vivacity  of  his  perceptions,  the 
audacity  of  his  imagination,  the  picturesqueness  of  his 
phrase  when  he  was  pleased — and  even  more  when  he  was 
displeased — his  abounding  good-humour,  his  candour,  his 
unclouded  frankness,  his  unfailing  impulse  to  share  every 
emotion  and  impression  with  his  friend  ;  all  this  made 
coim-adeship  a  high  felicity,  and  interfused  with  a  deeper 
amenity  the  wanderings  and  contemplations  that  beguiled 
their  pilgrimage  to  Rome. 

They  had  gone  almost  immediately  to  Paris,  and  had 
spent  their  days  at  the  Louvre  and  their  evenings  at  the 
theatre.  Roderick  was  divided  in  mind  as  to  whether 
Titian  or  Mademoiselle  Delaporte  were  the  greater  artist. 
They  had  come  down  through  France  to  Genoa  and  Milan, 
had  spent  a  fortnight  in  Venice  and  another  in  Florence, 
and  had  now  been  a  month  in  Rome.  Roderick  had  said 
that  he  meant  to  spend  three  months  in  simply  looking, 


64  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

absorbing,  :ind  reflecting,  without  putting  pencil  to  paper. 
He  looked  indefatigably,  and  certainly  saw  great  things — 
things  greater  doubtless  at  times  than  the  intention  of  the 
artist.  And  yet  he  made  few  false  steps,  and  wasted  little 
time  in  theories  of  what  he  ought  to  like  and  to  dislike. 
He  judged  instinctively  and  passionately,  but  never  vul- 
garly. At  Venice  for  a  couple  of  days  he  had  half  a  fit 
of  melancholy  over  the  pretended  discovery  that  he  had 
missed  his  way,  and  that  the  only  proper  vestment  of  plastic 
concej^tions  was  the  colouring  of  Titian  and  Paul  Veronese. 
Then  one  morning  the  two  young  men  had  themselves 
rowed  out  to  Torcello,  and  Roderick  lay  back  for  a  couple 
of  hours  watching  a  brown- breasted  gondolier  making 
superb  muscular  movements,  in  high  relief,  against  the 
sky  of  the  Adriatic,  and  at  the  end  jerked  himself  up 
with  a  violence  that  nearly  swamped  the  gondola,  and 
declared  that  the  only  thing  worth  living  for  was  to  make 
a  colossal  bronze  and  set  it  aloft  in  the  light  of  a  public 
square.  In  Rome  his  first  care  was  for  the  Vatican ;  he 
went  there  again  and  again.  But  the  old  imperial  and 
papal  city  altogether  delighted  him  ;  only  there  he  really 
found  what  he  had  been  looking  for  fxom  the  first — the 
complete  contradiction  of  Northampton.  And  indeed  Rome 
is  the  natural  home  of  those  spirits  with  which  we  just 
now  claimed  fellowship  for  Roderick — the  spirits  with  a 
deep  relish  for  the  artificial  element  in  life  and  the  infinite 
superpositions  of  history.  It  is  the  immemorial  city  of 
convention  ;  and  in  that  still  recent  day  the  most  impressive 
(convention  in  all  history  was  visible  to  men's  ey^s~in  the 
reverberating  streets,  erect  in  a  gilded  coach  drawn  by  four 
black  horses.  Roderick's  first  fortnight  was  a  high  aesthetic 
revel.  He  declared  that  Rome  made  him  feel  and  under- 
stand more  things  than  he  could  express  ;  he  was  sure  that 
life  must  have  there  for  all  one's  senses  an  incomparable 
fineness ;  that  more  interesting  things  must  happen  to  one 
there  than  anywhere  else.  And  he  gave  Rowland  to  under- 
stand that  he  meant  to  live  freely  and  largely  and  be  as  in- 
terested as  occasion  demanded.  Rowland  saw  no  reason  to 
regard  this  as  a  menace  of  grossness,  because  in  the  first 
place  there  was  in  all  dissipation,  refine  it  as  one  might,  a 
vulgarity  which  would  disqualify  it  for  Roderick's  favour  : 
and  because  in  the  second  the  young  sculptor  was  a  man 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  6£ 

to  regard  all  things  in  the  light  of  his  art,  to  hand  over 
his  passions  to  his  genius  to  be  dealt  with,  and  to  find 
that  he  could  live  largely  enough  without  exceeding  the 
circle  of  pure  delights.  Rowland  took  immense  satisfac- 
tion in  his  companion's  lively  desire  to  transmute  all  bis 
impressions  into  production.  Production  indeed  was  not 
always  working  at  a  clay  model,  but  the  form  it  sometimes 
took  was  none  the  less  a  safe  one.  He  wrote  frecjuent  long 
letters  to  Mary  Garland ;  when  Rowland  went  with  him 
to  post  them  he  thought  wistfully  of  the  fortune  of  the 
large  loosely- written  missives,  which  cost  Roderick  uncon- 
scionable sums  in  postage.  He  received  punctual  answers 
of  a  more  frugal  shape,  written  in  a  clear  and  delicate  hand, 
on  paper  vexatiously  thin.  If  Rowland  was  present  when 
they  came,  he  turned  away  and  thought  of  other  things 
—or  tried  to  think.  These  were  the  only  moments  when 
his  sympathy  halted,  and  they  were  brief.  For  the  rest 
he  let  the  days  go  by  unprotestingly,  and  enjoyed  Roderick's 
serene  efflorescence  as  he  would  have  done  a  beautiful  summer 
sunrise.  Rome  for  the  past  month  had  been  delicious.  The 
annual  descent  of  the  Goths  had  not  yet  begun,  and  sunny 
leisure  seemed  to  brood  over  the  city. 

Roderick  had  taken  out  a  note- book  and  was  roughly 
sketching  a  memento  of  the  great  Juno.  Suddenly  there 
was  a  noise  on  the  gravel,  and  the  young  men,  looking  up, 
saw  three  persons  advancing.  One  was  a  woman  of  middle 
age,  with  a  rather  grand  air  and  a  great  many  furbelows. 
She  looked  very  hard  at  our  friends  as  she  passed,  and 
glanced  back  over  her  shoulder  as  if  to  hasten  the  step  cf 
a  young  girl  who  slowly  followed  her.  She  had  such  an 
expansive  majesty  of  mien  that  Rowland  supposed  she 
must  have  some  proprietary  right  in  the  villa  and  was  not 
just  then  in  an  hospitable  mood.  Beside  her  walked  a 
little  elderly  man,  tightly  buttoned  in  a  shabby  black  coat, 
but  with  a  flower  in  his  lajDpet  and  a  pair  of  soiled  light 
gloves.  He  was  a  grotesque-looking  personage,  and  might 
have  passed  for  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school  reduced  by 
adversity  to  playing  cicerone  to  foreigners  of  distinction. 
He  had  a  little  l3lack  eye  which  glittered  like  a  diamond, 
and  rolled  about  like  a  ball  of  quicksilver,  and  a  white 
moustache,  cut  short  and  stiff,  like  a  worn-out  brush.  He 
was  smiling  with  extreme  urbanity  and  talking  in  a  low 

E 


Gfi  liODEiaCK  HUDSON. 

mellifluous  voice  to  the  lady,  who  evidently  was  not  listen- 
int'  to  him.  At  a  considerable  distance  behind  this  couple 
strolled  a  young  girl,  apparently  of  about  twenty.  She 
was  tall  and  slender  and  dressed  with  extreme  elegance  ; 
she  led  by  a  cord  a  large  poodle  of  the  most  fantastic 
aspect.  He  was  combed  and  decked  like  a  ram  for  sacri- 
fice ;  his  trunk  and  haunches  were  of  the  most  transparent 
pink,  his  fleecy  head  and  shoulders  as  white  as  jeweller's 
cotton,  his  tail  and  ears  ornamented  with  long  blue  ribbons. 
He  stepped  along  stifily  and  solemnly  beside  his  mistress, 
with  an  air  of  conscious  elegance.  There  was  something 
at  first  slightly  ridiculous  in  the  sight  of  a  young  lady 
gravely  appended  to  an  animal  of  these  incongruous  attri- 
butes, and  Roderick,  with  his  customary  frankness,  greeted 
the  spectacle  with  a  confident  smile.  The  young  girl  per- 
ceived it  and  turned  her  face  full  upon  him,  with  a  gaze 
intended  apparently  to  enforce  greater  deference.  It  was 
not  deference,  however,  her  countenance  provoked,  but 
startled  submissive  admiration  ;  Roderick's  smile  fell  dead 
and  he  sat  eagerly  staring.  A  pair  of  extraordinary  dark 
blue  eyes,  a  mass  of  dusky  hair  over  a  low  forehead,  a 
blooming  oval  of  perfect  purity,  a  flexible  lip  just  touched 
with  disdain,  the  step  and  carriage  of  a  tired  princess — 
these  were  the  general  features  of  his  vision.  The  young 
lady  was  walking  slowly  and  letting  her  long  dress  rustle 
over  the  gravel ;  the  young  men  had  time  to  see  her  dis- 
tinctly before  she  averted  her  face  and  went  her  way.  IShe 
left  a  vague  sweet  perfume  behind  her  as  she  passed. 

"  Immortal  powers  !  "  cned  Roderick  ;  *'  what  a  vision  ! 
In  the  name  of  transcendent  perfection  who  is  she  ?  "  He 
sprang  up  and  stood  looking  after  her  until  she  rounded  a 
turn  in  the  avenue.  "  What  a  movement,  what  a  manner, 
what  a  poise  of  the  head  !  I  wonder  if  she  would  sit 
to  me  ?  " 

"  You  had  better  go  and  ask  her,"  said  Rowland,  laugh- 
ing.     "  She  is  certainly  most  beautiful." 

"  BeautifuH  She's  beauty  itself — she's  a  revelation. 
I  don't  believe  she  is  living — she's  a  phantasm,  a  vapour, 
an  illusion  !  " 

"  The  poodle,"  said  Rowland,  "  is  certainly  alive." 

"  Ko,  he  too  may  be  a  grotesque  phantom,  like  the  black 
dog  in  Faust.' ^ 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  07 

"  I  hope  at  least  that  the  young  lady  has  nothing  in 
common  with  Mephistopheles,     She  looked  dangerous." 

"  If  beauty  is  immoral,  as  people  think  at  Northampton," 
said  Roderick,  "  she  is  the  incarnation  of  evil.  The  mamma 
and  the  queer  old  gentleman  moreover  are  a  pledge  of  her 
reality.     Who  are  they  all  1 " 

"  The  Prince  and  Princess  Ludovisi  and  the  ^;W^^cy;ess^?^a," 
suggested  Ilowland. 

"  There  are  no  such  people,"  said  Roderick.  "  Besides, 
the  little  old  man  is  not  the  papa."  Rowland  smiled, 
wondering  how  he  had  ascertained  these  facts,  and  the 
young  sculptor  went  on.  *'  The  old  man  is  a  Roman,  a 
hanger-on  of  the  mamma,  a  useful  personage  who  now 
and  then  gets  asked  to  dinner.  The  ladies  are  foreigners 
from  some  Northern  country;  I  won't  say  which." 

"  Perhaps  from  the  State  of  Maine,"  said  Pvowland. 

"No,  she  is  not  an  American,  I  will  lay  a  wager  on 
that.  She  is  a  daughter  of  this  elder  world.  We  shall 
see  her  again,  I  pray  my  stars ;  but  if  we  don't  I  shall 
have  done  something  I  never  expected — I  shall  have  had 
a  glimpse  of  ideal  beauty.''  He  sat  down  again  and  went 
on  with  his  sketch  of  the  Juno,  scrawled  away  for  ten 
minutes,  and  then  handed  the  result  in  silence  to  Rowland. 
Rowland  uttered  an  exclamation  of  surprise  and  applause. 
The  drawing  represented  the  Juno  as  to  the  position  of 
the  head,  the  brow  and  the  broad  fillet  across  the  hair; 
but  the  eyes,  the  mouth,  the  physiognomy  were  a  vivid 
portrait  of  the  young  girl  with  the  poodle.  "  I  have  been 
wanting  a  subject,"  said  Roderick ;  "  there's  one  made  to 
my  hand  !     And  now  for  work  !  " 

They  saw  no  more  of  the  young  girl,  though  Roderick 
looked  hopefully  for  some  days  into  the  carriages  on  the 
Pincian.  She  had  evidently  only  been  passing  through 
Rome ;  Naples  or  Florence  now  happily  possessed  her, 
and  she  was  guiding  her  fleecy  companion  through  the 
Villa  Reale  or  the  Boboli  Gardens  with  the  same  superb 
defiance  of  irony.  Roderick  went  to  work  and  spent  a 
month  shut  up  in  his  studio ;  he  had  an  idea  and  he  was 
not  to  rest  till  he  had  embodied  it.  He  had  established 
himself  in  the  basement  of  a  huge,  dusky,  dilapidated  old 
house,  in  that  long  tortuous  and  preeminently  Roman 
street   which    leads    from    the    Corso    to   the    Bridge   of 

E  2 


68  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

St.  Angelo.  The  black  archway  which  admittf.d  you  might 
have  served  as  the  portal  of  the  Aiige;tn  stables,  but  you 
emefged  presently  upon  a  mouldy  little  court,  of  which  the 
fourth  side  was  formed  by  a  narrow  terrace  overhanging 
the  Tiber.  Here,  along  the  parapet,  were  stationed  half 
a  dozen  shapeless  fragments  of  sculpture,  with  a  couple  of 
meagre  orange-trees  in  terra-cotta  tubs  and  an  oleander 
that  never  flowered.  The  unclean  historic  river  swept 
beneath ;  behind  were  dusky,  reeking  walls,  spotted  here 
and  there  with  hanging  rags  and  flower-pots  in  windows ; 
opposite,  at  a  distance,  were  the  bare  brown  banks  of  the 
stream,  the  huge  rotunda  of  St.  Angelo,  tipped  with  its 
seraphic  statue,  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  broad- 
topped  pines  of  the  Yilla  Pamfili.  The  place  was  crumbling 
and  shabby  and  melancholy,  but  the  river  was  delightful, 
the  rent  was  a  trifle  and  everything  was  picturesc^ue. 
Roderick  was  in  the  best  humour  with  his  quarters  from 
the  first,  and  was  certain  that  the  faculty  of  production 
would  be  intenser  there  in  an  hour  than  in  twenty  years 
at  Northampton.  His  studio  was  a  large  empty  room 
with  a  vaulted  ceiling,  covered  with  vague  dark  traces  of 
an  old  fresco  which  Rowland  when  he  spent  an  hour  with 
his  friend  used  to  stare  at  vainly  for  some  surviving  cohe- 
rence of  floating  draperies  and  clasping  arms.  Roderick 
had  lodged  himself  economically  in  the  same  quarter.  He 
occupied  a  fifth  floor  on  the  Ripetta,  but  he  was  only  at 
home  to  sleep,  for  when  he  was  not  at  work  he  was  either 
louoging  in  Rowland's  more  luxurious  rooms  or  strolling 
through  streets  and  churches  a,nd  gardens. 
I  Rowland  had  found  a  convenient  corner  in  a  stately  old 
palace  close  to  the  Fountain  of  Trevi,  and  made  himself 
a  home  to  which  books  and  pictures  and  prints  and  odds 
and  ends  of  curious  furniture  gave  an  air  of  leisurely  per- 
manence. He  had  the  tastes  of  a  collector ;  he  spent  half 
his  afternoons  ransacking  the  dusky  magazines  of  the 
curiosity-mongers,  and  he  often  made  his  way  in  quest 
of  a  prize  into  the  heart  of  impecunious  Roman  house- 
holds which  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  listen  —  with 
closed  doors  and  an  impenetrably  wary  smile — to  pro- 
posals for  an  hereditary  "  antique.^'  In  the  evening  often, 
under  the  lamp,  amid  dropped  curtains  and  the  scattered 
gleam   of    firelight    upon    polished    carvings    and    mellow 


E0DP:RICK  HUDSON.  69 

paintings,  the  two  friends  sat  with  their  heads  together, 
criticising  intaglios  and  etchings,  water-colour  drawings 
and  illuminated  missals.  E-oderick's  quick  appreciation  of 
every  form  of  artistic  beauty  reminded  his  companion  of 
the  tlexible  temperament  of  those  Italian  artists  of  the 
sixteenth  century  who  were  indifferently  painters  and 
sculptors,  sonneteers  and  engravers.  At  times  when  he 
saw  how  the  young  sculptor's  day  passed  in  a  single 
sustained  pulsation,  while  his  own  was  broken  into  a 
dozen  conscious  devices  for  disposing  of  the  hours,  and 
intermingled  with  sighs,  half  supj^ressed,  some  of  them, 
for  conscience'  sake,  over  what  he  failed  of  in  action  and 
missed  in  possession — he  felt  a  pang  of  something  akin 
to  envy.  But  Rowland  had  two  substantial  aids  for  giving 
patience  the  air  of  contentment^;  he  was  an  in;|uisitive 
Tenider  and'  a  passionate  rider.  He  plunged  into  bulky 
German  octavos  on  Italian  history,  and  he  spent  long 
afternoons  in  the  saddle,  ranging  over  the  grassy  desola- 
tion of  the  Campagna.  As  the  season  went  on  and  the 
social  groups  began  to  constitute  themselves,  he  found 
that  he  knew  a  great  many  people,  and  that  he  had  easy 
opportunity  for  knowing  others.  He  enjoyed  a  quiet 
corner  of  a  drawing-room  beside  an  agreeable  woman, 
and  although  the  machinery  of  what  calls  itself  society 
seemed  to  him  to  have  many  superfluous  wheels,  he  ac- 
cepted invitations  and  made  visits  punctiliously,  from  the 
conviction  that  the  only  way  not  to  be  overcome  by  the 
ridiculous  side  of  most  of  such  observances  is  to  take  them 
with  exaggerated  gravity.  He  introduced  Roderick  right 
and  left,  and  suffered  him  to  make  his  way  himself — an 
enterprise  for  which  Pvoderick  very  soon  displayed  an  all- 
suilicieut  capacity.  Wherever  he  went  he  made,  not  exactly 
what  is  called  a  favourable  impression,  but  what,  from  a 
practical  point  of  view,  is  better — a  puzzling  one.  He  took 
to  evening  parties  as  a  duck  to  water,  and  before  the 
winter  was  half  over  was  the  most  freely  and  frequently 
discussed  young  man  in  the  heterogeneous  foreign  colony. 
Rowland's  theory  of  his  own  duty  was  to  let  him  run  his 
course  and  play  his  cards,  only  holding  himself  ready  to 
point  out  shoals  and  pitfalls  and  administer  a  friendly 
propulsion  through  tight  places.  Roderick's  manners  on 
the  precincts  of  the  Pincian  were  quite  the  same  as  his 


70  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

manners    on    Cecilia's    verandah ;    that    is,   they    were    no 
manners  at  all.     But  it  remained  as  true  as  before  that 
it  would    have  been   impossible   on  the  whole  to  violate 
ceremony  with  less  of   lasting  offence.      He  interrupted, 
he   contradicted,    he  spoke  to  people  he  had  never  seen, 
and  left  his  social  creditors  without  the  smallest  conversa- 
tional interest   on  their  loans  ;    he  lounged   and  yawned, 
he  talked  loud  when  he  should  have  talked  low,  and  low 
when  he  should  have  talked  loud.     Many  people  in  con- 
sequence thought  him  insufferably  conceited  and  declared 
that  he  ought  to  wait  till  he  had  something  to  show  for 
his  powers  before  he  assumed  the  airs  of  a  spoiled  celebrity. 
But  to  Rowland  and  to  most  friendly  observers  this  judg- 
ment was  quite  beside  the  mark,  and  the  young  man's 
undiluted  naturalness  was  its  own  justification.     He  was 
impulsive,  spontaneous,  sincere ;  there  were  so  many  people 
at  dinner-tables    and    in    studios   who    were   not    that    it 
seemed  worth  while  to  allow  this  rare  specimen  all  possible 
freedom  of  action.      If   Roderick  took  the  words  out  of 
your  mouth  when  you  were  just  prepared  to  deliver  them 
with  the  most  effective  accent,  he  did  it  with  a  perfect 
good  conscience,  and  with  no  pretension  of  a  better  right 
to  being  heard,  but  simply  because  he  was  full  to  over- 
flowing of  his  own  momentary  thought  and  it  sprang  from 
his  lips  without  asking  leave.     There   were  persons  who 
waited  on  your  periods  much  more  deferentially,  that  were 
a  hundred  times  more  capable  than  Roderickof  a  reflective 
impertinence.       Roderick   received   from  various    sources, 
chiefly    feminine,    enough    finely-adjusted    advice    to    have 
established    him    in  life    as    an    embodiment  of    the    pro- 
prieties, and   he  received  it,  as  he  afterwards  listened  to 
criticisms  on  his  statues,   with    unfaltering    candour  and 
good-humour.     Here  and  there   doubtless  as  he  went  he 
took  in  a  reef  in  his  sail ;  but  he  was  too  adventurous  a 
spirit  to  be  successfully  tamed,  and  he  remained  at  most 
points  the  florid,  rather  strident  young  Virginian  whose 
brilliant  aridity  had  been  the  despair  of  Mr.  Striker.     All 
this  was  what  friendly  commentators  (still  chiefly  feminine) 
alluded  to   when  they   spoke   of    his  delightful  freshness, 
and  critics  of  harsher  sensibilities  (of  the  other  sex)  when 
they  denounced  his  damned  impertinence.     His  appe.:irance 
enforced  these  impressions — his  handsome  face,  his  radiant 


TtODEKICK  HUDSON.  71 

imaverted   eyes,  his  childish  unmodulated  voice.  \Af  ter- 
wards,  when  those  who  loved  him  were  in  tears,  there  was    \ 
something  in  all  this  unspotted  comeliness  that  seemed  to  ^ 
lend  a  mockery  to  the  causes  of  their  sorrow,  i 

Certainly,  among 'the  young  men  of  genilTg  who  for  so 
many  ages  have  gone  up  to  Rome  to  test  their  powers, 
^one  ever  made  a  fairer  beginning  than  Roderick.  He 
rode  his  two  horses  at  once  with  extraordinary  good  for- 
tune ;  he  established  the  happiest  modus  vivendi  betwixt 
work  ar^d  play.  He  wrestled  all  day  with  a  mountain  of 
clay  in  his  studio,  and  chattered  half  the  night  away  in 
Roman  drawing-rooms.  It  all  seemed  part  of  a  kind  of 
divine  facility.  He  was  passionately  interested,  he  was 
feeling  his  powers  ;  now  that  they  had  thoroughly  kindled 
in  the  glowing  [esthetic  atmosphere  of  Rome  the  ardent 
young  fellow  should  be  pardoned  for  believing  that  he 
never  was  to  see  the  end  of  them.  He  enjoyed  immeasur- 
ably, after  the  chronic  obstruction  of  home,  the  downright 
act  of  production.  He  kept  models  in  his  studio  till  they 
dropped  with  fatigue ;  he  drew  on  other  days  at  the 
Capitol  and  the  Vatican  till  his  own  head  swam  with  his 
eagerness  and  his  limbs  stiffened  with  the  cold.  He  had 
promptly  set  up  a  life-sized  figure  which  he  called  an 
"  Adam,"  and  was  pushing  it  rapidly  towards  completion. 
There  were  naturally  a  great  many  wiseheads  who  smiled 
at  his  precipitancy  and  cited  him  as  one  more  example  of 
Yankee  crudity — a  capital  recruit  to  the  great  army  of 
those  who  wish  to  dance  before  they  can  walk.  They 
were  right,  but  Roderick  was  right  too,  for  the  success 
of  his  statue  was  not  to  have  been  foreseen ;  it  partook 
really  of  the  miraculous.  He  never  surpassed  it  after- 
wards, and  a  good  judge  here  and  there  has  been  known 
to  pronounce  it  the  finest  piece  of  sculpture  of  our  modern 
time.  To  Rowland  it  seemed  to  justify  superbly  the 
highest  hopes  of  his  friend,  and  he  said  to  himself  that 
if  he  had  staked  his  reputation  on  bringing  out  a  young 
lion  he  ought  now  to  pass  for  a  famous  connoiseur.  In 
his  elation  he  travelled  up  to  Carrara  and  selected  at  the 
quarries  the  most  mcagnificent  block  of  marble  he  could 
find,  and  when  it  came  down  to  Rome  the  two  young  men 
had  a  "  celebration."  They  drove  out  to  Albano,  break- 
fasted   boisterously  (in  their  respective  measure)    at   the 


72  KODEllICK  HUDSON. 

inn,  and  lounged  away  the  day  in  the  sun  on  the  top  of 
Monte  Cavo.  lloderick's  head  was  full  of  ideas  for  other 
works,  which  ho  described  with  infinite  spirit  and  eloquence, 
as  vividly  as  if  they  were  ranged  on  their  pedestals  before 
him.  He  had  an  indefatigable  fancy  ;  things  he  saw  in 
the  streets,  in  the  country,  things  he  heard  and  read, 
eft'ects  he  saw  just  missed  or  half  expressed  in  the  works 
of  others,  acted  upon  his  mind  as  a  kind  of  challenge,,  and 
he  was  terribly  uneasy  until  in  some  form  or  other  he  had 
taken  up  the  glove  and  set  his  lance  in  rest. 

The  Adam  was  put  into  marble,  and  all  the  world  came 
to  see  it.  Of  the  criticisms  passed  upon  it  this  history 
undertakes  to  offer  no  record  ;  over  many  of  them  the  two 
young  men  had  a  daily  laugh  for  a  month,  and  certain 
of  the  formulas  of  the  connoisseurs,  restrictive  or  indul- 
gent, furnished  Roderick  with  a  permanent  supply  of 
humorous  catchwords.  But  people  enough  spoke  tlatter- 
ing  good  sense  to  make  Roderick  feel  as  if  he  were  already 
half  famous.  The  statue  passed  formally  into  Rowland's 
possession ;  it  was  paid  for  as  if  an  illustrious  name  had 
been  chiselled  on  the  pedestal.  Poor  Roderick  owed 
every  franc  of  the  money.  It  Avas  not  for  this  however,  but 
because  he  was  so  gloriously  in  the  mood,  that,  denying 
himself  all  breathing  time,  on  the  same  day  he  had  given 
the  last  touch  to  the  Adam,  he  began  to  shape  the  rough 
contour  of  an  Eve.  This  experiment  went  forward  with 
equal  rapidity  and  success.  Roderick  lost  his  temper  time 
and  again  with  his  models,  who  offered  but  a  gross  de- 
generate imago  of  his  splendid  ideal ;  but  his  ideal,  as  he 
assured  Rowland,  became  gradually  such  a  fixed  vivid 
presence  that  he  had  only  to  shut  his  eyes  to  behold  a 
creature  far  more  to  his  purpose  than  the  poor  girl  who 
stood  posturing  at  forty  sous  an  hour.  The  Eve  was 
finished  in  three  months,  and  the  feat  was  extraordinary, 
as  well  as  the  statue,'  which  represented  an  admirably 
beautiful  woman.  When  the  spring  began  to  muffle  the 
rugged  old  city  with  its  tremulous  festoons  it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  done  a  handsome  winter's  work  and  had  fairly 
earned  a  holiday.  He  took  a  liberal  one,  and  lounged 
away  the  lovely  Roman  May,  doing  nothing.  He  looked 
very  contented  ;  with  himself  perhaps  at  times  a  trifie  too 
obviously.    But  who  could  have  said  without  good  reason  ? 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  "5 

He  was  "  flushed  with  triumph ; "  this  classic  phrase 
portrayed  him  to  Rowland's  sense.  He  would  lose  himself 
in  long  reveries  and  emerge  from  them  with  a  quickened 
smile  and  heightened  colour.  Rowland  grudged  him  none 
of  his  smiles  and  took  an  extreme  satisfaction  in  his  two 
statues.  He  had  these  productions  transported  to  his  own 
apartment,  and  one  warm  evening  in  May  he  gave  a  little 
dinner  in  honour  of  the  artist.  It  was  small,  but  Rowland 
had  meant  it  should  be  very  agreeably  composed.  He 
thought  over  his  friends  and  chose  four.  They  were  all 
persons  with  whom  he  lived  in  a  certain  intimacy. 


YI. 


One  of  them  was  an  American  sculptor  of  French 
extraction,  or  remotely  perhaps  of  Italian,  for  he  rejoiced 
in  the  somewhat  fervid  name  of  Gloriani.  He  was  a  man 
of  forty,  he  had  been  living  for  years  in  Paris  and  in 
Rome,  and  he  now  drove  a  very  pretty  trade  in  sculpture 
of  the  ornamental  and  fantastic  sort.  In  his  youth  he  had 
had  money ;  but  he  had  spent  it  recklessly,  mnch  of  it 
scandalously,  and  at  twenty-six  had  found  himself  obliged 
to  make  capital  oi  his  talent.  This  was  quite  inimitable, 
and  fifteen  years  of  indefatigable  exercise  had  brought  it 
to  perfection.  Rowland  admitted  its  power,  though  it  gave 
him  very  little  pleasure  ;  what  he  relished  in  the  man  was 
the  extraordinary  vivacity  and  frankness,  not  to  call  it 
the  impudence,  of  his  opinions.  He  had  a  definite,  practical 
scheme  of  art,  and  he  knew  at  least  what  he  meant.  In 
this  sense  he  was  solid  and  complete.  There  were  so  many 
of  the  aesthetic  fraternity  who  were  floundering  in  unknown 
seas,  without  a  notion  of  which  way  their  noses  were 
turned,  that  Gloriani,  conscious  and  compact,  imlimitedly 
intelligent  and  consummately  clever,  dogmatic  only  as  to 
his  own  duties  and  at  once  gracefully  deferential  and  pro- 
foundly indifferent  to  those  of  others,  had  for  Rowland 
a  certain  intellectual  refreshment  quite  independent  of  the 


72  r  KODEKICK  HUDSON. 

vcliaracter  of  his  works.  These  were  considered  by  most 
people  to  belong  to  a  very  corrupt,  and  by  many  to  a  posi- 
tively indecent,  t-chool.  Others  thought  them  tremendously 
knowing  and  paid  enormous  prices  for  them ;  and  indeed 
to  be  able  to  point  to  one  of  Gloriani's  figures  in  a  shady 
corner  of  your  library  was  tolerable  proof  that  you  were 
not  a  fool.  Corrupt  things  they  certainly  were;  in  the 
Hne  of  sculpture  they  were  (juite  the  latest  fruit  of  time. 

jjft  w^as  the  artist's  opinion  that  there  is  no  essential  dif- 
ference between  beauty  and  ugliness  ;  that  they  overlap 
and  intermingle  in  a  quite  inextricable  manner ;  that  there 
is  no  saying  where  one  begins  and  the  other  ends ;  that 
hideousness  grimaces  at  you  suddenly  from  out  of  the  very 
bosom  o^  loveliness,  and  beauty  blooms  before  your  eyes  in 
the  lap  of  vileness  ;  that  it  is  a  waste  of  wit  to  nurse 
metaphyi-ical  distinctions  and  a  sadly  meagre  entertainment 
to  caress  imaginary  lines ;  that  the  thing  to  aim  at  is  the 
expressive  and  the  way  to  reach  it  is  by  ingenuity  ;  that 
for  this  purpose  everything  may  serve,  and  that  a  consum- 
mate work  is  a  sort  of  hotch-potch  of  the  pure  and  the 
impure,  the  graceful  and  the  grotesque.  Its  prime  duty 
is  to  amuse,  to  puzzle,  to  fascinate,  to  savour  of  a  complex 
imagination?  Gloriani's  statues  were  florid  and  meretri- 
cious ;•  they  looked  like  magnified  goldsmith's  work.  They 
were  extremely  elegant,  but  they  had  no  charm  for  Ecw- 
land.  He  never  bought  one,  but  Gloriani  was  such  an 
independent  fellow,  and  was  withal  so  deluged  with  orders, 
that  this  made  no  difference  in  their  friendship.  The  artist 
miizht  have  passed  for  a  Frenchman.  He  was  a  great 
talker,  and  a  very  pictures^jue  one  ;  he  was  almost  bald  ; 
he  had  a  small  bright  eye,  a  broken  nose  and  a  moustache 
with  waxed  ends.  When  sometimes  he  received  you  at 
his  lodging,  he  introduced  you  to  a  lady  w^th  a  plain  face 
whom  he  called  IMadame  Gloriani — which  she  was  not. 

Rowland's  second  guest  was  also  an  artist,  but  of  a  very 
different  type.  His  friends  called  him  Sam  Singleton  :  he 
was  an  American,  and  he  had  been  in  Rome  a  couple  of 
years.  He  painted  small  lardscapes,  chiefly  in  water- 
colours  ;  Rowland  had  seen  one  of  them  in  a  shop  window, 
had  liked  it  extremely,  and,  ascertaining  his  address,  had 
gone  to  see  him  and  found  him  established  in  a  very  humble 
studio  near  the  Piazza  Barberini,  where  apparently  fame 


RODEEICK  HUDSON.  75 

and  fortune  had  not  yet  found  him  out.  PvowLmd  took  a 
fancy  to  him  and  bought  several  of  his  pictures  ;  Singleton 
made  ffew  speeches,  but  he  was  grateful.  E-owland  heard 
afterwards  that  when  he  first  came  to  Rome  he  painted 
worthless  daubs  and  gave  no  promise  of  talent.  Improve- 
ment had  come  however  hand  in  hand  with  patient  industry, 
and  his  talent,  though  of  a  slender  and  delicate  order,  was 
now  incontestable.  It  was  as  yet  but  scantily  recognised, 
and  he  had  hard  work  to  live.  Rowland  hung  his  little 
water-colours  on  the  library  wall  and  found  that  as  he 
lived  with  them  he  grew  very  fond  of  them.  Singleton 
was  a  diminutive  attenuated  personage ;  he  looked  like  a 
precocious  child.  He  had  a  high  protuberant  forehead,  a 
transparent  brown  eye,  a  perpetual  smile,  an  extraordinary 
expression  of  modesty  and  patience.  He  listened  much 
more  willingly  than  he  talked,  with  a  little  fixed  grateful 
grin  ;  he  blushed  when  he  spoke,  and  always  offered  his 
ideas  in  a  sidelong  fashion,  as  if  the  presumption  were 
against  them.  His  modesty  set  them  off  and  they  were 
eminently  to  the  point,  jj  He  was  so  perfect  an  example  of 
the  little  noiseless  laborious  artist  whom  chance,  in  the 
person  of  a  moneyed  patron,  has  never  taken  by  the 
hand,  that  Rowland  would  have  liked  to  befriend  him  by 
stealth,  /'Singleton  had  expressed  a  fervent  admiration  for 
Roderick's  productions,  but  he  had  not  yet  met  the  young 
m.aster.  Roderick  was  lounging  against  the  chimney-piece 
when  he  came  in,  and  Rowland  presently  introduced  him. 
The  little  water-colourist  stood  with  folded  hands,  blushing, 
smiling  and  looking  up  at  him  as  if  Roderick  had  been 
himself  a  statue  on  a  pedestal.  Singleton  began  to  murmur 
something  about  his  pleasure,  his  admiration  ;  the  desire 
to  say  something  very  appreciative  gave  him  almost  a  look 
of  distress.  Roderick  looked  down  at  him,  surprised, 
and  suddenly  burst  into  a  laugh.  Singleton  paused  a 
moment  and  then,  with  an  inter.ser  smile,  went  on — 
"  Well,  sir,  your  statues  are  beautiful,  all  the  same  !  " 

Rowland's  two  other  guests  were  ladies,  and  one  of 
them,  Miss  Blanchard,  belonged  also  to  the  artistic  frater- 
nity. She  was  an  American,  she  was  young,  she  was 
pretty,  and  she  had  made  her  way  to  Rome  alone  and 
unaided.  She  lived  alone,  or  with  no  other  duenna  than 
a  bushy-browed  old  serving-woman,  though  indeed  she  had 


7r,  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

a  friendly  neiglibour  in  the  person  of  a  certain  Madame 
Grandoni,  wlio  in  various  social  emergencies  lent  her  a 
protecting  wing  and  had  come  with  her  to  Rowland's 
dinner.  Miss  Ulancliard  had  a  small  fortune,  but  she  was 
not  above  selling  her  pictures.  These  represented  generally 
a  bunch  of  dew-sprinkled  roses,  with  the  dew-drops  very 
highly  finished,  or  else  a  wayside  shrine  and  a  peasant 
woman  with  her  back  turned  kneeling  before  it.  She  did 
backs  very  well,  but  she  was  a  little  weak  in  faces.  Flowers 
however  were  her  speciality,  and  though  her  touch  was  a 
little  old-fashioned  and  finical,  she  painted  them  with 
remarkable  skill.  Her  pictures  were  chietiy  bought  by 
the  English.  Rowland  had  made  her  ac  piaintance  early 
in  the  winter,  and  as  she  kept  a  saddle  horse  and  rode  a 
great  deal  he  had  asked  permission  to  be  her  cavalier. 
In  this  way  they  had  become  almost  intimate.  Miss 
Blanchard's  name  was  Augusta ;  she  was  slender,  pale 
and  elegant ;  she  had  a  very  pretty  head  and  brilliant 
auburn  hair,  which  she  braided  with  classic  simplicity. 
She  talked  in  a  sweet  soft  voice,  used  language  at  times 
a  trifle  superfine,  and  made  literary  allusions.  These  had 
often  a  patriotic  strain,  and  Rowland  had  more  than  once 
been  treated  to  quotations  from  Mrs.  Sigourney  in  the 
cork- woods  of  Monte  Mario,  and  from  Mr.  Willis  among 
the  ruins  of  Veii.  Rowland  was  of  a  dozen  different 
minds  about  her,  and  was  half  surprised  at  times  to  find 
himself  treating  it  as  a  matter  of  serious  moment  that  he 
should  like  her  or  not.  He  admired  her,  and  indeed  there 
was  something  admirable  in  her  combination  of  beauty 
and  talent,  of  isolation  and  self-support.  He  used  some- 
times to  go  into  the  little  high-niched  ordinary  room  which 
served  her  as  a  studio,  and  find  her  working  at  a  panel  six 
inches  square,  at  an  open  casement,  profiled  against  the 
deep  blue  Roman  sky.  She  received  him  with  a  meek-eyed 
dignity  that  made  her  seem  like  a  painted  saint  on  a 
church-window,  receiving  the  daylight  in  all  her  being. 
The  breath  of  vulgar  rumour  passed  her  by  with  folded 
wings.  And  yet  Rowland  wondered  why  he  did  not  like 
her  better.  If  he  failed,  the  reason  was  not  far  to  seek. 
There  was  another  woman  whom  he  liked  better,  an  image 
in  his  heart  which  gave  itself  little  airs  of  exclusiveness. 
On  that  evening  to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  when 


RODKRICK  HUDSON.  77 

Rowland  was  left  alone  between  the  starlight  and  the  wav-es 
with  the  sudden  knowledge  that  Mary  Garland  was  to  be- 
come another  man's  wife,  he  had  made  after  a  while  the 
simple  resolution  to  forget  her.  And  every  day  since,  like 
a  famous  philosopher  who  wished  to  abbreviate  his  mourn- 
ing for  a  faithful  servant,  he  had  said  to  himself  in  sub-  ■ 
stance — "  Remember  to  forget  Mary  Garland."  Sometimes  / 
it  seemed  as  if  he  were  succeeding ;  then,  suddenly,  when 
he  was  least  expecting  it,  he  would  find  her  name  inaudibly 
on  his  lips,  and  seem  to  see  her  eyes  meeting  his  eyes.  All 
this  made  him  uncomfortable,  and  seemed  to  portend  a 
possible  discord.  Discord  was  not  to  his  taste ;  he  shrank 
from  imperious  passions,  and  the  idea  of  finding  himself 
jealous  of  an  unsuspecting  friend  was  simply  disgusting. 
More  than  ever,  then,  the  path  of  good  manners  was  to 
forget  Mary  Garland,  and  he  cultivated  oblivion,  as  we  > 
may  say,  in  the  person  of  Miss  Blanchard.  Her  fine 
temper,  he  said  to  himself,  was  a  trifle  cold  and  conscious, 
her  purity  prudish  perhaps,  her  culture  pedantic.  But 
since  he  was  obliged  to  give  up  hopes  of  Mary  Garland, 
Providence  owed  him  a  compensation,  and  he  had  fits  of 
angry  sadness  in  which  it  seemed  to  him  that  to  attest 
his  right  to  sentimental  satisfaction  he  should  indulge  in 
some  defiantly  incongruous  passion.  And  what  was  the 
use  after  all  of  bothering  about  a  possible  which  was  only 
perhaps  a  dream  1  Even  if  Mary  Garland  had  been  free, 
what  right  had  he  to  assume  that  he  should  have  pleased . 
her  1  The  actual  was  good  enough.  Miss  Blanchard  had 
beautiful  hair,  and  if  she  were  a  trifle  old-maidish,  there 
was  nothing  like  matrimony  for  curing  old-maidishness. 

Madame  Grandoni,  who  had  formed  with  the  companion 
of  Rowland's  rides  an  alliance  which  might  have  been 
called  defensive  on  the  part  of  the  former  and  attractive 
on  that  of  Miss  Blanchard,  was  an  excessively  ugly  old 
lady,  highly  esteemed  in  Roman  society  for  her  homely 
benevolence  and  her  shrewd  and  humorous  good  sense. 
She  had  been  the  widow  of  a  German  archaeologist  who 
came  to  Rome  in  the  early  ages,  as  an  attache  of  the 
Prussian  legation  on  the  Capitoline.  Her  good  sense  had 
been  wanting  on  but  a  single  occasion,  that  of  her  second 
marriage.  This  occasion  was  certainly  a  momentous  one, 
but  these    are    by  common    consent    not    test    cases.       A 


78  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

couple  of  years  after  her  first  husband's  death  she  had 
accepted  the  hand  and  the  name  of  a  Neapolitan  music- 
master,  ten  years  younger  than  herself  and  with  no  for- 
tune but  his  fiddle-bow.  The  marriage  was  most  unhappy, 
and  the  Maestro  Grandoni  was  suspected  of  using  the 
fiddle  bow  as  an  instrument  of  conjugal  correction.  He 
had  finally  run  oil  with  a  p-ma  donna  assolufa,  who  it 
was  to  be  hoped  had  given  him  a  taste  of  the  quality 
implied  in  her  title.  He  was  believed  to  be  living  still, 
but  he  had  shrunk  to  a  small  black  spot  in  Madame 
Grandoni's  life,  and  for  ten  years  she  had  not  mentioned 
his  name.  She  wore  a  light  flaxen  wig,  which  was  never 
very  artfully  adjusted;  but  this  mattered  little,  as  she 
made  no  secret  of  it.  She  used  to  say,  "  I  was  not  always 
so  ugly  as  this ;  as  a  young  girl  I  had  beautiful  golden 
hair,  very  much  the  colour  of  my  wig."  She  had  worn 
from  time  immemorial  an  old  blue  satin  dress  and  a  white 
crape  shawl  embroidered  in  colours ;  her  appearance  was 
ridiculous,  but  she  had  an  interminable  Teutonic  pedigree, 
and  her  manners  in  every  presence  were  easy  and  jovial, 
as  became  a  lady  whose  ancestor  had  been  cup  bearer  to 
Frederick  Barbarossa.  ''^_Thirty  years'  observation  of  Roman 
society  had  sharpened  her  wits  and  given  her  an  inex- 
haustible store  of  anecdotes ;  but  she  had  beneath  her 
crumpled  bodice  a  deep-welling  fund  of  Teutonic  senti- 
ment, which  she  communicated  only  to  the  objects  of  her 
•particufar  favour.^  Rowland  had  a  great  regard  for  her, 
and  she  repaid  It  by  wishing  him  to  get  married.  She 
never  saw  him  without  whispering  to  him  that  Augusta 
Blanchard  was  just  the  girl. 

It  seemed  to  Rowland  a  sort  of  foreshadowing  of 
matrimony  to  see  Augusta  Blanchard  standing  grac?- 
fuUy  on  his  hearth-rug  and  blooming  behind  the  central 
bouquet  at  his  circular  dinner-table.  The  dinner  was 
very  prosperous,  and  Ptoderick  amply  filled  his  position 
as  hero  of  the  feast.  He  had  always  an  air  of  joyous 
intentness,  but  on  this  occasion  he  manifested  a  good  deal 
of  harmless  pleasure  in  his  glory.  He  drank  freely  and 
talked  bravely ;  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair  with  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  and  flung  open  the  gates  of  his  eloquence. 
Singleton  sat  gazing  and  listening  open-mouthed,  as  if 
Phoebus   Apollo   had    been   talking.      Gloriani   showed  a 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  79 

twinkle  in  his  eye  and  an  evident  disposition  to  draw 
Roderick  out.  Rowland  was  rather  regretful,  for  he  knew 
that  theory  was  not  his  friend's  strong  point  and  that 
it  was  never  fair  to  take  his  measure  from  his  language, 

"  As  you  have  begun  with  Adam  and  Eve,"  said  Gloriani, 
"  I  suppose  you  are  going  straight  through  the  Bible."  He 
Avas  one  of  the  persons  who  thought  Roderick  delightfully 
fresh. 

"  I  may  make  a  David,"  said  Roderick,  "  but  I  shall 
not  try  any  more  of  the  Old  Testament  people.  I  don't 
like  the  Jews ;  I  don't  like  pendulous  noses.  David,  the 
boy  David,  is  rather  an  exception ;  you  can  think  of  him 
and  treat  him  as  a  young  Greek.  Standing  forth  there  on 
the  plain  of  battle  between  the  contending  armies,  rushing 
forward  to  let  fly  his  stone,  he  looks  like  a  beautiful  runner 
at  the  Olympic  games.  After  that  I  shall  skip  to  the  New 
Testament.     I  mean  to  make  a  Christ." 

"  You  will  put  nothing  of  the  Olympic  games  into  him, 
I  hope,"  said  Gloriani. 

"  Oh,  I  shall  make  him  very  different  from  the  Christ 
of  tradition;  more — more — "  and  R^oderick  paused  a 
moment  to  think.  This  was  the  first  that  Rowland  had 
heard  of  his  Christ. 

"More  rationalistic,  I  suppose,"  suggested  Miss  Elan- 
char  d. 

"  More  idealistic  !  "  cried  Roderick.  "  The  perfection  of 
form,  you  know,  to  symbolise  the  perfection  of  spirit." 

"For  a  companion-piece,"  said  Miss  Blanchard,  "you 
ought  to  make  a  Judas." 

"  Never  !  I  mean  never  to  make  anything  ugly.  The 
Greeks  never  made  anything  ugly,  and  I  am  a  Hellenist ; 
I  am  not  a  Hebraist  !  I  have  been  thinking  lately  of 
making  a  Cain,  but  I  should  never  dream  of  making  him 
ugly.  He  should  be  a  very  handsome  fellow,  and  he 
should  lift  up  the  murderous  club  with  the  beautiful 
movement  of  the  fighters  in  the  Greek  friezes  who  are 
chopping  at  their  enemies." 

"  There  is  no  use  trj-ing  to  be  a  Greek,"  said  Gloriani. 
"  If  Phidias  were  to  come  back  he  would  recommend  you 
to  give  it  up.  I  am  half  Italian  and  half  French,  and,  as 
a  whole,  a  Yankee.  What  sort  of  a  Greek  should  I 
make?     I  think  the  Judas  is  a  capital  idea  for  a  statue. 


80  HODKRICK  HUDSON. 

Much  obliged  to  you,  madam,  for  the  suggestion.  What 
an  insidious  little  scoundrel  one  might  make  of  him,  sitting 
there  nursing  his  money-bag  and  his  treachery  !  There 
may  be  a  great  deal  of  expression  in  a  pendulous  nose,  my 
dear  sir — especially  if  one  has  put  it  there  !  " 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Roderick.  "  But  it  is  not  the  i^ort 
of  expression  I  care  for.  1  care  only  for  perfect  beauty. 
There  it  is,  if  you  want  to  know  it  !  That  is  as  good  a 
profession  of  faith  as  another.  In  future,  so  far  as  my 
things  are  not  positively  beautiful  you  may  set  them  down 
as  failures.  For  me,  it's  either  that  or  nothing.  It  is 
against  the  taste  of  the  day,  I  know ;  we  have  really 
lost  the  faculty  to  understand  beauty  in  the  large  ideal 
way.  We  stand  like  a  race  with  shrunken  muscles,  staring 
helplessly  at  the  w^eights  our  forefathers  easily  lifted. 
But  I  don't  hesitate  to  proclaim  it — I  mean  to  lift  them 
again  !  I  mean  to  go  in  for  big  things  ;  that  is  my  notion 
of  my  art.  I  mean  to  do  things  that  will  be  simple  and 
vast  and  infinite.  You  shall  see  if  they  won't  be  infinite ! 
Excuse  me  if  I  brag  a  little ;  all  those  Italian  fellows  in 
the  Renaissance  used  to  brag.  There  was  a  sensation 
once  common,  I  am  sure,  in  the  human  breast — a  kind 
of  religious  awe  in  the  presence  of  a  marble  image  newly 
created  and  expressing  the  human  type  in  superhuman 
purity.  When  Phidias  and  Praxiteles  had  their  statues 
of  goddesses  unveiled  in  the  temples  of  the  ^gean,  don't 
you  suppose  there  was  a  passionate  beating  of  hearts,  a 
thrill  of  mysterious  terror  1  I  mean  to  bring  it  back  ;  I 
mean  to  thrill  the  world  again  !  I  mean  to  produce  a 
Juno  that  will  make  you  tremble,  a  Yenus  that  will  make 
you  grow  faint." 

"  So  that  when  we  come  and  see  you,"  said  Madame 
Grandoni,  "we  must  be  sure  and  bring  our  smelling- 
bottles.     And  pray  have  a  few  sofas  conveniently  placed." 

"  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,"  Miss  Blanchard  remarked, 
"  had  the  advantage  of  believing  in  their  goddesses.  I 
insist  on  believing,  for  myself,  that  the  pagan  mythology 
is  not  a  fiction,  and  that  Venus,  and  Juno,  and  Apollo,  and 
Mercury  used  to  come  down  in  a  cloud  into  this  very  city 
of  Rome  where  we  sit  talking  nineteenth-century  English." 

"  Nineteenth-century  nonsense,  my  dear!"  cried  Madame 
Grandoni.    "  Mr.  Hudson  may  be  a  new  Phidias,  but  Venus 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  81 

and  Juno — that's  you  and  I — arrived  to-day  in  a  veiy  dirty 
cab;  and  were  cheated  by  the  driver  too." 

"  But,  my  dear  fellow,"  objected  Gloriani,  "  you  don't 
mean  to  say  you  are  going  to  make  over  in  cold  blood 
those  poor  old  exploded  Apollos  and  Hebes." 

"It  won't  matter  what  you  call  them,"  said  Roderick. 
"  They  shall  be  simply  divine  forms.  They  shall  be 
Beauty ;  they  shall  be  Wisdom ;  they  shall  be  Power ; 
they  shall  be  Genius ;  they  shall  be  Daring.  That's  all 
the  Greek  divinities  were." 

"  That's  rather  abstract,  you  know,"  said  Miss  Blanchard. 

*'  My  dear  fellow,"  cried  Gloriani,  "  you  are  delightfully 
young !  " 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  grow  any  older,"  said  Singleton, 
with  a  flush  of  sympathy  across  his  large  white  forehead. 
"  You  can  do  it  if  you  try." 

"Then  there  are  all  the  Forces,  and  Elements,  and 
Mysteries  of  Nature,"  Roderick  went  on.  "I  mean  to 
do  the  Morning ;  I  mean  to  do  the  Night !  I  mean  to 
do  the  Ocean  and  the  Mountains;  the  Moon  and.  the 
West  Wind.  I  mean  to  make  a  magnificent  statue  of 
America  !  " 

"America — the  Mountains — the  Moon  !"  said  Gloriani. 
"  You  will  find  it  rather  hard,  I'm  afraid,  to  compress  such 
subjects  into  classic  forms." 

"  Oh,  there's  a  way,"  cried  Roderick,  "  and  I  shall  think 
it  out.  My  figures  shall  make  no  contortions,  but  they 
shall  mean  a  tremendous  deal." 

"  I  am  sure  there  are  contortions  enough  in  Michael 
Angelo,"  said  Madame  Grandoni ;  "perhaps  you  don't 
approve  of  him." 

"  Oh,  Michael  Angelo  was  not  me ! "  said  Roderick 
with  sublimity.  There  was  a  great  laugh ;  but  after  all 
Roderick  had  done  some  fine  things. 

Rowland  had  bidden  one  of  the  servants  to  bring  him 
a  small  portfolio  of  prints,  and  had  taken  out  a  photograph 
of  Roderick's  little  statue  of  the  youth  drinking.  It 
pleased  him  to  see  his  friend  sitting  there  in  radiant 
ardour,  defending  idealism  against  so  knowing  an  apostle 
of  corruption  as  Gloriani,  and  he  wished  to  help  the  elder 
artist  to  be  confuted.  He  silently  handed  him  the 
photograph. 


82  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  Bless  me  !  "  cried  Gloriuui,  "  did  he  do  this  1 " 

"  Ages  ago,"  said  Roderick. 
tGloriani  looked  at  the    photograph  a    long    time,    with 
evident  admiration. 

"  It's  deucedly  pretty,"  he  said  at  last.  "  But,  my  dear 
young  friend,  you  can't  keep  this  up." 

"  I  shall  do  better,"  said  Roderick. 

"  You  will  do  worse !  You  will  become  weak.  You 
will  have  to  take  to  violence,  to  contortions,  to  romanticism 
in  self-defence.  This  sort  of  thing  is  like  a  man  trying 
to  lift  himself  up  by  the  seat  of  his  trousers.  He  may 
stand  on  tiptoe,  but  he  can't  do  more.  Here  you  stand 
on  tiptoe,  very  gracefully  I  admit  ;  but  you  can't  liy ; 
there's  no  use  trying." 

"  My  '  America  '  shall  answer  you  !  "  said  Roderick, 
shaking  towards  him  a  tall  glass  of  champagne  and 
drinking  it  down. 

Singleton  had  taken  the  photograph,  and  was  poring  over 
it  with  a  little  murmur  of  delight. 

"Was  this  done  in  America  'i  "  he  asked. 

"In  a  square  white  wooden  house  at  Northampton, 
Massachusetts,"  Roderick  answered. 

"  Dear  old  white  wooden  houses  ! "  said  Miss  Blanchard. 

"  If  you  could  do  as  well  as  this  there,"  said  Singleton, 
blushing  and  smiling,  "  one  might  say  that  really  you  had 
only  to  lose  by  coming  to  Rome." 

"  Our  host  is  to  blame  for  that,"  said  Roderick.  "  But 
I  am  willing  to  risk  the  loss." 

The  photograph  had  been  passed  to  Madame  Grandoni. 
'^  It  reminds  me,"  she  said,  "  of  the  things  a  young  man 
used  to  do  whom  I  knew  years  ago,  when  I  first  came 
to  Rome.  He  was  a  German,  a  pupil  of  Overbeck, 
and  a  votary  of  spiritual  art.  He  used  to  wear  a  black 
velvet  tunic  and  a  very  low  shirt-collar;  he  had  a  neck 
like  a  sickly  crane,  and  he  let  his  hair  grow  down  to  his 
shoulders.  His  name  was  Herr  Schaafgans.  He  never 
painted  anything  so  profane  as  a  man  taking  a  drink,  for 
•>none  of  his  people  had  anything  so  vulgar  as  an  a^^pfitite. 
They  were  aiHingles  and  edges — they  looked  like  diagrams 
of  human  nature.  Tliey  were  figures  if  you  please — but 
geometrical  figures.  He  would  not  have  agreed  with 
Gloriani  any  more  than  you.     He  used  to  come  and  see  me 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  83 

very  often,  and  in  those  days  I  thought  his  tunic  and  his 
long  neck  infallible  symptoms  of  genius.  His  talk  was 
all  of  gilded  aureoles  and  beatific  visions ;  he  lived  on 
weak  wine  and  biscuits  and  wore  a  lock  of  Saint  Some- 
body's hair  in  a  little  bag  round  his  neck.  If  he  was  not 
a  Beato  Angelico  it  was  not  his  own  fault.  I  hope  with 
all  my  heart  that  Mr.  Hudson  will  do  the  fine  things  he 
talks  about,  but  he  must  bear  in  mind  the  history  of  dear 
Mr.  Schaafgans  as  a  warning  against  high-flown  preten- 
sions. One  fine  day  this  poor  young  man  fell  in  love  with 
a  Roman  model,  though  she  had  never  sat  to  him  I  believe, 
for  she  was  a  buxom,  bold-faced,  high-coloured  creature, 
and  he  painted  none  but  pale  and  sickly  women.  He 
offered  to  marry  her,  and  she  looked  at  him  from  head  to 
foot,  gave  a  shrug  and  consented.  But  he  was  ashamed 
to  set  up  his  menage  in  Rome.  They  went  to  Naples,  and 
there,  a  couple  of  years  afterwards,  I  saw  him.  The  poor 
fellow  was  ruined.  His  wife  used  to  beat  him  and  he  had 
taken  to  drinking.  He  wore  a  ragged  black  coat  and  he 
had  a  blotchy  red  face.  Madame  had  turned  washer- 
woman and  used  to  make  him  go  and  fetch  the  dirty  linen. 
His  talent  had  gone  heaven  knows  where  !  He  was  getting 
his  living  by  painting  views  of  Vesuvius  in  eruption  on 
the  little  boxes  they  sell  at  Sorrento," 

"  Moral :  don't  fall  in  love  with  a  buxom  Roman  model," 
said  Roderick.  "  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  story, 
but  I  don't  mean  to  fall  in  love  with  any  one." 

Gloriani  had  possessed  himself  of  the  photograph  again, 
and  was  looking  at  it  curiously.  "It's  a  happy  bit  of 
youth,"  he  said.  "  But  you  can't  keejD  it  up — you  can't 
keep  it  up  !  " 

The  two  sculptors  pursued  their  discussion  after  dinner 
in  the  drawing-room.  Rowland  left  them  to  have  it  out 
in  a  corner,  where  Roderick's  Eve  stood  over  them  in  the 
shaded  lamplight,  in  vague  white  beauty,  like  the  guardian 
angel  of  the  young  idealist.  Singleton  was  listening  to 
Madame  Grandoni,  and  Rowland  took  his  place  on  the 
sofa  near  Miss  Blanchard.  They  had  a  good  deal  of 
familiar  desultory  talk ;  every  now  and  then  Madame 
Grandoni  looked  round  at  them.  Miss  Blanchard  at  last 
asked  Rowland  certain  questions  about  Roderick — who  he 
was,  where  he  came  from,  whether  it  was  true,  as  she  had 

F  2 


84  RODKRICK  HUDSON. 

heard,  that  Rowland  had  discovered  him  and  brought  him 
out  at  his  own  expense.  Rowland  answered  her  questions  ; 
to  the  last  he  gave  a  vague  affirmative.  Finally,  after  a 
pause,  looking  at  him,  "You  are  very  generous,"  Miss 
Blanchard  said.  The  declaration  was  made  with  a  certain 
richness  of  tone,  but  it  brought  to  Rowland's  sense  neither 
delight  noi  confusion.  He  had  heard  the  words  before; 
he  suddenly  remembered  the  grave  sincerity  with  which 
Mary  Garland  hud  uttered  them  as  he  strolled  with  her  in 
the  woods  on  the  day  of  Roderick's  picnic.  They  had 
pleased  him  then ;  now  he  asked  Miss  Blanchard  whether 
she  would  have  some  tea. 

When  the  two  ladies  withdrew  he  went  with  them  to 
their  hackney-coach.  Coming  back  to  the  drawing-room, 
he  paused  outside  the  open  door ;  [he  was  struck  by  the 
group  formed  by  the  three  men.  They  were  standing 
before  Roderick's  statue  of  Eve,  and  the  young  sculptor 
had  lifted  up  the  lamp  and  was  showing  different  parts 
of  it  to  his  companions.  He  was  talking  ardently — the 
lamplight  covered  his  head  and  face.  Rowland  stood 
looking  on,  for  the  group  struck  him  with  its  picturesque 
symbolism.  Roderick,  bearing  the  lamp  and  glowing  in 
its  radiant  circle,  seemed  the  beautiful  image  of  a  genius 
which  combined  sincerity  with  power.  Gloriani,  with  his 
head  on  one  side,  pulling  his  long  moustache  and  looking 
keenly  from  half-closed  eyes  at  the  lighted  marble,  repre- 
sented art  with  a  worldly  motive,  skill  unleavened^  by 
faith,  the  mere  base  maximum  of  cleverness.  Poor  little 
Singleton,  on  the  other  side,  with  his  hands  behind  him, 
his  head  thrown  back  and  his  eyes  following  devoutly 
the  course  of  Roderick's  explanations,  might  pass  for  an 
embodiment  of  aspiring  candour  afflicted  with  feebleness 
of  w'ing?;>  In  all  this,  Roderick's  was  certainly  the  heau 
rdle. 

Gloriani  turned  to  Rowland  as  he  came  up,  and  pointed 
back  with  his  thumb  to  the  statue,  with  a  smile  half 
sardonic,  half  good-natured.  "  A  pretty  thing — a  devilish 
pretty  thing,"  he  said.  "It's  as  fresh  as  the  foam 
in  the  milk-pail.  He  can  do  it  once,  he  can  do  it 
twice,  he  can  do  it  at  a  stretch  half  a  dozen  times. 
But— 6w^— " 

He  was  returning  to  his  former  refrain,  but  Pvowland 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  85 

intercepted    him.      "  Oh,   he    will   keep   it   up,"   he    said. 


smiling,  "  I  will  answer  for  him  ! 


Gloriani  was  not  encouraging,  but  Roderick  had  listened 
smiling.  He  was  floating  on  the  tide  of  his  deep  self- 
confidence.  Now,  suddenly,  however,  he  turned  with  a 
flash  of  irritation  in  his  eye,  and  demanded  in  a  ringing 
voice,  "In  a  word  then  you  prophesy  that  I  shall  fail  1  " 

lUoriani  answered  imperturbably,  patting  him  kindly  on 
the  shoulder.  "  My  dear  fellow,  passion  burns  out,  in- 
spiration runs  to  seed.  Some  fine  day  every  artist  finds 
himself  sitting  face  to  face  with  his  lump  of  clay,  with  his 
empty  canvas,  with  his  sheet  of  blank  paper,  waiting  in 
vain  for  the  revelation  to  be  made,  for  the  Muse  to  descend. 
He  must  learn  to  do  without  the  Muse  !  "When  the  fickle 
jade  forgets  the  way  to  your  studio,  don't  waste  any  time 
in  tearing  your  hair  and  meditating  on  suicide.  Come 
round  and  see  me  and  I  will  show  you  how  to  console 
yourself, " 

"  If  I  break  down,"  said  Roderick  passionately,  "  1  shall 
stay  down.  If  the  Muse  deserts  me,  she  shall  at  least 
have  her  infidelity  on  her  conscience  !  " 

"  You  have  no  business,"  Rowland  said  to  Gloriani,  "  to 
talk  lightly  of  the  Muse  in  this  company.  Mr.  Singleton 
too  has  received  pledges  from  her  which  place  her  constancy 
beyond  suspicion."  And  he  pointed  out  on  the  wall,  near 
by,  two  small  landscapes  by  the  modest  water-colourist. 

The  sculptor  examined  them  with  deference,  and  Single- 
ton himself  began  to  Ipiigh  nervously ;  he  was  trembling 
with  hope  that  the  great  Gloriani  would  be  pleased.  "  Yes, 
these  are  fresh  too,"  Gloriani  said;  "extraordinarily  fresh  ! 
How  old  are  you  1  " 

"  Twenty-six,  sir,"  said  Singleton. 

"  For  twenty-six  they  are  famously  fresh.  They  must 
have  taken  you  a  long  time ;  you  work  slowly." 

''  Yes,  unfortunately  I  work  very  slowly.  One  of  them 
took  me  six  weeks,  the  other  two  months." 

"Upon  my  word!  The  Muse  pays  you  long  visits." 
And  Gloriani  turned  and  looked  from  head  to  foot  at  so 
unlikely  an  object  of  her  favours.  Singleton  smiled  and 
began  to  wipe  his  forehead  very  hard.  "  Oh,  you,"  said  the 
sculptor — "  you'll  keep  it  up  !  " 

A  week   after   his    dinner   party,    Rowland    went   into 


86  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Roderick's  studio  and  found  him  sitting  before  an  un- 
finished piece  ot  work,  with  a  hanging  head  and  a  heavy 
eye.  He  might  have  fancied  that  the  fatal  hour  foretold 
by  Gloriani  had  struck.  Roderick  rose  with  a  sombre 
yawn  and  flung  down  his  tools.  "  It's  no  use,"  he  said, 
"  I  give  it  up  !  " 

"  What  is  it  1 " 

*'  I  have  struck  a  shallow  !  I  have  been  sailing  bravely, 
but  for  the  last  day  or  two  my  keel  has  been  grinding  the 
bottom." 

"  A  difficult  place  1  "  Rowland  asked,  with  a  sympathetic 
inflection,  looking  vaguely  at  the  roughly  modelled  figure. 

"  Oh,  it's  not  the  poor  old  clay  !  "  Roderick  answered. 
"■  The  difficult  place  is  here  !  "  And  he  struck  a  blow  on 
his  heart.  "I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me. 
Nothing  comes  ;  all  of  a  sudden  I  hate  things.  My  old 
things  look  ugly  ;  everything  looks  stupid." 

Rowland  was  perplexed.  He  was  in  the  situation  of  a  man 
who  has  been  riding  a  blood-horse  at  a  steady  elastic  galop, 
and  of  a  sudden  feels  him  stumble  and  balk.  As  yet  he 
reflected,  he  had  seen  nothing  but  the  sunshine  of  genius ; 
he  had  forgotten  that  it  has  its  storms.  Of  course  it  has  ! 
A.id  he  felt  a  flood  of  comradeship  rise  in  his  heart  which 
would  float  them  both  safely  through  the  worst  weather. 
"  Why,  you  are  tired  !  "  he  said.  ''  Of  course  you  are 
tired.     You  have  a  right  to  be." 

"  Do  you  think  I  have  a  right  to  be  1  "  Roderick  asked, 
looking  at  him. 

*'  Unquestionably,  after  all  you  have  done." 

"  Well,  then,  right  or  wrong,  I  am  tired.  I  certainly 
have  done  a  fair  winter's  work.     I  want  a  change." 

Rowland  declared  that  it  was  certainly  high  time  they 
should  be  leaving  Rome.  They  would  go  north  and  travel. 
They  would  go  to  Switzerland,  to  Germany,  to  Holland, 
to  England.  Roderick  assented,  his  eye  brightened,  and 
Row^land  talked  of  a  dozen  things  they  might  do.  Roderick 
walked  up  and  down ;  he  seemed  to  have  something  to  s;iy 
which  he  hesitated  to  bring  out.  He  hesitated  .so  rarely 
that  Rowland  wondered,  and  at  last  asked  him  what  was 
on  his  mind.  Roderick  stopped  before  him  frowning  a 
little. 

"  I  have  such  unbounded  faith  in  your  good-will,"  he 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  87 

said,   "  that    I    believe   nothing   I   can    say  would    offend 
yoa." 

"Try  it!  "  said  Kowland. 

"  Well,  then,  1  think  my  journey  will  do  me  more  good 
if  I  take  it  alone.  I  needn't  say  I  prefer  your  society  to 
that  of  any  man  living.  For  the  last  six  months  it  has 
been  a  fund  of  comfort.  But  I  have  a  perpetual  feeling 
that  you  are  expecting  something  of  me,  that  you  are 
measuring  my  doings  by  a  terrifically  high  standard.  You 
are  watching  me ;  I  don't  want  to  be  watched  !  I  want 
to  go  my  own  way ;  to  work  when  I  choose  and  to  loaf 
when  I  choose.  It  is  not  that  I  don't  know  what  I  owe 
you :  it  is  not  that  we  are  not  friends.  It  is  simply  that 
I  want  a  taste  of  perfect  freedom.  Therefore  I  say  let  us 
separate." 

Rowland  shook  him  by  the  hand.  "  Willingly — do  as 
you  desire  !  I  shall  miss  you,  and  I  venture  to  believe 
you  will  pass  some  lonely  hours.  But  I  have  only  one 
request  to  make — that  if  you  get  into  trouble  of  any  kind 
whatever,  you  will  immediately  let  me  know." 

They  began  their  journey  however  together,  crossing 
the  Alps  side  by  side,  mutiled  in  one  rug,  on  the  top  of  the 
St.  Gothard  coach.  Rowland  was  going  to  England  to 
pay  some  promised  visits ;  his  companion  had  no  plan  save 
to  ramble  through  Switzerland  and  Germany  as  fancy 
should  guide  him.  He  had  money  that  would  outlast  the 
summer  ;  when  it  was  spent  he  would  come  back  to  Rome 
and  make  another  statue.  At  a  little  mountain- village  by 
the  way  Roderick  declared  that  he  would  stop ;  he  would 
scramble  about  a  little  in  the  high  j^laces  and  doze  in  the 
shade  of  the  pine-forests.  The  coach  was  changing  horses ; 
the  two  young  men  walked  along  the  village  street,  picking 
their  way  between  dung-hills,  breathing  the  light  cool  air, 
and  listening  to  the  plash  of  the  fountain  and  the  tinkle 
of  cattle-beils.  The  coach  overtook  them,  and  then  Row- 
land, as  he  prepared  to  mount,  felt  an  almost  overmastering 
reluctance. 

"  Say  the  word,"  he  exclaimed,  "  and  I  will  stop  too  !  "^ 

Roderick  frowned.  "  Ah,  you  don't  trust  me  ;  you  don't 
think  I  am  able  to  take  care  of  myself  !  That  proves  that 
I  was  right  in  feeling  as  if  I  were  watched  !  " 

"Watched,  mv  dear  fellow?"  said  Rowland,  "I  hope 


88  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

you  may  never  have  anything  worse  to  complain  of  than 
being  watched  in  the  spirit  in  which  I  watch  you.  But 
I  will  spare  you  even  that.  Good-bye  !  "  Standing  in  his 
place  as  the  coach  rolled  away,  he  looked  back  at  his  friend 
lingering  by  the  roadside.  A  great  snow-moimtain,  behind 
Roderick,  was  beginning  to  turn  pink  in  the  sunset.  The 
slim  and  straight  young  figure  waved  its  hat  with  a  sort  of 
mocking  solemnity.  Rowland  settled  himself  in  his  place, 
reflecting  after  all  that  this  was  a  salubrious  beginning 
of  independence.  Roderick  was  among  forests  and  glaciers, 
leaning  on  the  pure  bosom  of  nature.  And  then — and 
then — was  it  not  in  itself  a  guarantee  against  folly  to  be 
engaged  to  Mary  Garland  'i 


VII. 


Rowland  passed  the  summer  in  England,  staying  with 
several  old  friends  and  two  or  three  new  ones.  On  his 
arrival  he  felt  it  on  his  conscience  to  write  to  Mrs.  Hudson 
and  inform  her  that  her  son  had  relieved  him  of  his  tute- 
lage. He  felt  that  she  thought  of  him  as  an  incorruptible 
Mentor,  following  Roderick  like  a  shadow,  and  he  washed 
to  let  her  know  the  truth.  But  he  made  the  truth  very 
comfortable,  and  gave  a  detailed  account  of  the  young 
man's  brilliant  beginnings.  He  owed  it  to  himself,  he 
said,  to  remind  her  that  he  had  not  judged  lightly,  and 
that  Roderick's  present  achievements  were  more  profitable 
than  his  inglorious  drudgery  at  Messrs.  Striker  &  Spooner's. 
He  was  now  taking  a  well-earned  Jioliday  and  proposing  to 
see  a  little  of  the  world.  He  would  work  none  the  worse 
for  this  ;  every  artist  needed  to  knock  about  and  look  at 
things  for  himself.  They  had  parted  company  for  a  couple 
of  months,  for  Roderick  w^as  now  a  great  man  and  beyond 
the  need  of  going  about  with  a  keeper.  But  they  were 
to  meet  again  in  Rome  in  the  autumn,  and  then  he  should 
be  able  to  send  her  more  good  news.  Meanwhile  he  was 
very  happy  in  what  Roderick  had  already  done — especially 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  89 

happy  in  the  happiness  it  must  have  brought  his  mother. 
He  ventured  to  ask  to  be  kindly  commended  to  Miss 
Garland. 

His  letter  was  promptly  answered — to  his  surprise  in 
the  hand  of  the  latter  lady.  The  same  post  brought  also 
an  epistle  from  Cecilia.  The  document  was  voluminous, 
and  we  must  content  ourselves  with  giving  an  extract. 

"  Your  letter  was  filled  with  an  echo  of  that  brilliant 
Roman  world  which  made  me  almost  ill  with  envy.     For 
a  week  after  I  got  it  I  thought  Northampton  really  unpar- 
donably  tame.     But  I  am  drifting  back  again  to  my  old 
deeps  of  resignation,  and  I  rush  to  the  window,  when  any 
one  passes,  with  all  my  old  gratitude  for  small  favours. 
So  Roderick  Hudson  is  already  a  great  man,  and  you  turn 
out  to  be  a  great  prophet  1     My  compliments  to  both  of 
you ;  I  never   saw  a  trick   so   prettily  played  !     And  he 
takes  it  all  very  quietly,  and  doesn't  lose  his  balance  nor 
let  it  turn  his  head  1    You  judged  him  then  in  a  day  better 
than  I  had  done  in  six  months,  for  I  really  did  not  expect 
that  he  would  behave  so  properly.     I  believed  he  would 
do  fine  things,  but  I  was  sure  he  would  intersperse  them 
with  a  good  many  follies  and  that  his  beautiful  statues 
would  spring  up  out  of  the  midst  of  a  dense  plantation  of 
wild  oats.     But  from  vv^hat  you  tell  me,  Mr.  Striker  may 
now  go  hang  himself.  .   .   .  There  is  one  thing,  however, 
to  say  as  a  friend,  in  the  way  of  warning.     That  candid 
soul  can  keep  a  secret,  and  he  may  have  private  designs  on 
your  peace  of    mind.     What  do  you  think  of    his  being 
engaged  to  Mary  Garland  1     The  two  ladies  had  given  no 
hint  of  it  all  winter,  but  a  fortnight  ago,  when  those  big 
photographs  of  his  statues  arrived,  they  first  pinned  them 
up  on  the  wall,  and  then  trotted  out  into  the  town  and 
made  a  dozen  calls,  announcing  the  news.     Mrs.  Hudson 
did,  at  least ;  Miss  Mary,  I  suppose,  sat  at  home  writing 
letters.     To  me,  I  confess,  the  thing  was  a  brutal  surprise. 
I  had  not  a  suspicion  that  all  the  while  he  was  coming  so 
regularly  to  make  himself  agreeable  on  my  verandah,  he 
was  quietly  preferring  his  cousin  to  any  one  else.  ^  Not, 
indeed,  that  he  was  ever  at  particular  pains  to  make  himself 
agreeable  !     I  suppose  he  has  picked  up  a  few  graces  in 
Rome.     But  he  must  not  pick  up  too  many  ;  if  he  is  too 
polite  when  he  comes  back,  Miss  G.  will  count  him  as  one 


90  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

of  the  lost.  She  will  be  a  very  good  wife  for  a  man  of 
genius,  and  such  a  one  as  they  are  often  shrewd  enough 
to  take.  She  will  darn  his  stockings  and  keep  his  accounts, 
and  sit  at  home  and  trim  the  lamp  and  keep  up  the  fire, 
while  he  studies  the  Beautiful  in  pretty  neighbours  at 
dinner-parties.  The  two  ladies  are  evidently  very  happy, 
and,  to  do  them  justice,  very  humbly  grateful  to  you. 
Mrs.  Hudson  never  speaks  of  you  without  tears  in  her 
eyes,  and  I  am  sure  she  regards  you  as  our  leading  philan- 
thropist. Verily,  it's  a  good  thing  for  a  woman  to  be  in 
love ;  Mary  Garland  has  grown  almost  pretty.  1  met  her 
the  other  night  at  a  tea-party ;  she  had  a  white  rose  in 
her  hair  and  sang  a  sentimental  ballad  in  a  fine  contralto 
voice." 

Mary  Garland's  letter  was  so  much  shorter  that  we  may 
give  it  entire  : — 

"  My  dear  Sir, — Mrs.  Hudson,  as  I  sujDpose  you  know, 
has  been  for  some  time  unable  to  use  her  eyes.  She 
requests  me  therefore  to  answer  your  beautiful  letter  of 
the  22nd  of  June.  She  thanks  you  extremely  for  writing, 
and  wishes  me  to  say  that  she  considers  herself  under  great 
obligations  to  you.  Your  account  of  her  son's  progress 
and  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  is  held  has  made  her 
very  happy,  and  she  earnestly  prays  that  all  may  go  on 
well.  He  sent  us  a  short  time  ago  several  large  photo- 
graphs of  his  two  statues,  taken  from  different  points  of 
view.  We  know  little  about  such  things,  but  they  seem 
to  us  wonderfully  beautiful.  We  sent  them  to  Boston  to 
be  handsomely  framed,  and  the  man,  on  returning  them, 
wrote  us  that  he  had  exhibited  them  for  a  week  in  his 
gallery  and  that  they  had  attracted  great  attention.  The 
frames  are  magnificent,  and  the  pictures  now  hang  in  a  row 
on  the  parlour  wall.  Our  only  quarrel  with  them  is  that 
they  make  the  old  papering  and  the  engravings  look 
dreadfulh^  shabby.  Mr.  Striker  stood  and  looked  at  them 
the  other  day  full  five  minutes,  and  said  at  last  that  if 
Roderick's  head  had  been  running  on  such  things  it  was  no 
wonder  he  could  not  learn  to  draw  up  a  deed.  We  lead  here 
so  quiet  and  monotonous  a  life  that  I  am  afraid  I  can  tell 
}'ou  nothing  that  will  interest  you.  Mrs.  Hudson  requests 
me  to  say  that  the  little  that  might  happen  to  us — more 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  91 

or  less — is  of  small  importance,  as  we  live  in  our  thoughts, 
which  are  fixed  on  her  dear  son.  She  thanks  Heaven  he 
has  so  good  a  friend.  Mrs.  Hudson  says  that  this  is  too 
short  a"  letter,  but  I  can  say  nothing  more. 

"  Yours  most  respectfully, 

"  Mary  Garland." 

It  is  a  question  whether  the  reader  will  know  why,  but 
this  -letter  gave  Rowland  extraordinary  pleasure.  He  liked 
its  shortness  and  meagreness,  and  there  seemed  to  him  an 
exquisite  modesty  in  its  saying  Dothing  from  the  young  girl 
herself.  He  delighted  in  the  formal  address  and  con- 
clusion ;  they  pleased  him  as  he  had  been  pleased  by  an 
angular  gesture  in  some  expressive  girlish  figure  in  an 
early  painting.  The  letter  renewed  that  impression  of  fine 
feeling  combined  with  an  almost  rigid  simplicity,  which 
Roderick's  betrothed  had  personally  given  him.  And  its 
homely  stiffness  seemed  a  vivid  reflection  of  a  life  con- 
centrated, as  the  young  girl  had  borrowed  warrant  from 
her  companion  to  say,  in  a  single  devoted  idea.  The 
monotonous  days  of  the  two  women  seemed  to  Rowland's 
fancy  to  follow  each  other  like  the  tick-tick  of  a  great 
timepiece,  marking  off  the  hours  which  separated  them 
from  the  supreme  felicity  of  clasping  the  far-away  son 
and  lover  to  lips  sealed  with  the  intensity  of  joy. 

He  was  left  to  vain  conjectures  however  as  to  Roderick's 
own  state  of  mind.  He  knew  he  was  no  letter  writer,  and 
that  in  the  young  sculptor's  own  phrase  he  would  at  any  time 
rather  build  a  monument  than  write  a  note.  But  when  a 
month  had  passed  without  news  of  him,  he  began  to  be 
half  anxious  and  half  angry,  and  wrote  him  three  lines,  in 
the  care  of  a  Continental  banker,  begging  him  at  least  to 
give  some  sign  of  life.  A  week  afterwards  came  an  answer 
— brief,  and  dated  Baden-Baden.  "  I  know  I  have  been  a 
great  brute,"  Roderick  wrote,  "not  to  have  sent  you  a 
word  before ;  but  really  I  don't  know  what  has  got  into 
me.  I  have  lately  learned  terribly  well  how  to  do  nothing. 
I  am  afraid  to  think  how  long  it  is  since  I  wrote  to  my 
mother  or  to  Mary.  Heaven  help  them — poor  patient 
trustful  creatures  !  I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you  what 
I  am  doing  or  not  doing.  It  seems  all  amusing  enough 
while  it  lasts,  but  it  would  make  a  poor  show  in  a  narrative 


92  IIODEIIICK  HUDSON. 

intended  for  your  formidable  eyes.  I  found  Baxter  in 
Switzerland,  or  rather  lie  found  me,  and  he  grabbed  me 
by  the  arm  and  brought  me  here.  I  was  walking  twenty 
miles  a  day  in  the  Alps,  drinking  milk  in  lonely  chalets, 
sleeping  as  you  sleep,  and  thinking  it  was  all  very  good 
fun  ;  but  Baxter  told  me  it  would  never  do,  that  the  Alps 
were  '  damned  rot,^  tliat  Baden-Baden  was  the  place,  and 
that  if  I  knew^whaiTwas  good  for  me  I  w^ould^ome  along 
with  him.  It  is  a  wonderful  place  certainly,  though, 
thank  the  Lord,  Baxter  departed  last  week,  blaspheming 
horribly  at  trente  et  quarante.  But  you  know  all  about  it, 
and  what  one  does — what  one  is  liable  to  do.  I  have 
succumbed,  in  a  measure,  to  the  liabilities,  and  I  wish  I 
had  some  one  here  to  give  me  a  kicking.  Not  you — you 
would  kick  me  with  your  boots  oil: ;  you  are  too  devilish 
generous.  I  have  fits  of  horrible  homesickness  for  my 
studio,  and  I  shall  be  devoutly  grateful  when  the  summer 
is  over  and  I  can  go  back  and  potter  about  there.  I  feel 
as  if  nothing  but  the  chisel  would  satisfy  me ;  as  if  I 
could  rush  in  a  rage  at  a  block  of  unshaped  marble,  like 
Michael  A.  There  are  a  lot  of  Roman  people  here, 
English  and  American  ;  I  live  in  the  midst  of  them,  and 
talk  nonsense  from  morning  till  night.  There  is  also 
some  one  else ;  and  to  her  I  don't  talk  sense,  nor,  thank 
Heaven,  mean  what  I  say.  I  confess  I  need  a  month's 
work  to  recover  my  self-respect." 

These  lines  brought  Rowland  a  large  perturbation  ;  the 
more  that  what  they  seemed  to  point  to  surprised  him. 
During  the  nine  months  of  their  companionship  Roderick 
had  shown  so  little  taste  for  disorderly  doings  that  Rowland 
had  come  to  think  of  these  things  as  a  cancelled  danger, 
and  it  greatly  perplexed  him  to  learn  that  his  friend  had 
apparently  jn-oved  so  pliant  to  opportunity.  But  Roderick's 
allusions  were  ambiguous,  and  it  was  possible  they  might 
simply  mean  that  he  was  out  of  patience  with  a  frivolous 
way  of  life,  and  fretting  wholesomely  over  his  absent  work. 
It  was  a  very  good  thing  certainly  that  idleness  should 
prove  on  experiment  to  sit  heavily  on  his  conscience. 
Nevertheless  the  letter  needed  to  Rowland's  mind  a  key  : 
the  key  arrived  a  week  later.  "  In  common  charity," 
Roderick  wrote,  "  lend  me  a  hundred  pounds  !  I  have 
gambled  away  my    last    franc — I    have  made  a  villanous 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  93 

heap  of  debts.  Send  me  the  money  first ;  lecture  me 
afterwards  !  "  Rowland  sent  the  money  by  return  of  post ; 
then  he  proceeded,  not  to  lecture,  but  to  think.  He  hung 
his  head — he  was  acutely  disappointed.  He  had  no  right 
to  be,  he  assured  himself ;  but  so  it  was.  Roderick  was 
young,  impulsive,  unpractised  in  stoicism ;  it  was  a 
hundred  to  one  that  he  was  to  pay  the  usual  vulgar 
tribute  to  folly.  But  his  friend  had  regarded  it  as  securely 
gained  to  his  own  belief  in  virtue  that  he  was  not  as  other 
foolish  youths  are,  and  that  he  would  have  been  capable  of 
looking  at  folly  in  the  face  and  passing  on  his  way. 
Rowland  for  a  while  felt  a  sore  sense  of  wrath.  What 
right  had  a  man  who  was  engaged  to  that  delightful  girl 
in  Northampton  to  behave  as  if  his  consciousness  were  a 
common  blank,  to  be  overlaid  with  coarse  sensations  1 
Yes,  distinctly,  he  was  disappointed.  He  had  accompanied 
his  missive  with  an  urgent  recommendation  to  leave 
Baden-Baden  immediately,  and  an  offer  to  meet  Roderick 
at  any  point  he  would  name.  The  answer  came  promptly ; 
it  ran  as  follows  :  "  Send  me  another  fifty  pounds  !  I  have 
been  back  to  the  tables.  I  will  leave  as  soon  as  the  money 
comes,  and  meet  you  at  Geneva.  There  I  will  tell  you 
everything." 

There  is  an  ancient  terrace  at  Geneva,  planted  with 
trees  and  studded  with  benches,  overlooked  by  stately 
houses  and  overlooking  the  distant  Alps.  A  great  many 
generations  have  made  it  a  lounging-place,  a  great  many 
friends  and  lovers  strolled  there,  a  great  many  confidential 
talks  and  momentous  interviews  gone  forward.  Here,  one 
morning,  sitting  on  one  of  the  battered  green  benches, 
Roderick,  as  he  had  promised,  told  his  friend  everything. 
He  had  arrived  late  the  night  before ;  he  looked  tired,  and 
yet  flushed  and  excited.  He  made  no  professions  of  peni- 
tence, but  he  practised  an  unmitigated  frankness,  and  his 
remorse  might  be  taken  for  granted.  He  implied  in  every 
phrase  that  he  had  done  with  licentious  experiments  and 
that  he  was  counting  the  hours  till  he  should  get  back  to 
work.  We  shall  not  rehearse  his  confession  in  detail ;  its 
main  outline  will  be  sufficient.  He  had  fallen  in  with 
some  very  idle  people,  and  had  discovered  the  charms  of 
emulation.  What  could  he  do  1  He  never  read  books,  and 
he  had  no  studio ;  in  one  way  or  another  he  had  to  pass 


94  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  time.  He  passed  it  in  dangling  about  several  very 
pretty  women,  and  reilecting  that  it  was  always  something 
gained  for  a  sculptor  to  sit  under  a  tree  looking  at  his 
leisure  into  a  charming  face,  and  saying  things  tliat  made 
it  smile  and  play  its  muscles  and  part  its  lips  and  show 
its  teeth.  Attached  to  these  ladies  were  certain  gentlemen 
who  walked  about  in  clouds  of  fragrance,  rose  at  mid-day, 
and  supped  at  mid-night.  Roderick  had  found  himself  in 
the  mood  for  thinking  them  very  amusing  fellows.  He 
was  surprised  at  his  own  taste,  but  he  let  it  take  its 
course.  It  led  him  to  the  discovery  that  to  live  wnth 
ladies  who  expect  you  to  present  them  with  expensive 
bouquets,  to  ride  with  them  in  the  Black  Forest  on  well- 
looking  horses,  to  arrange  parties  for  the  opera  on  nights 
when  Patti  sang  and  the  prices  were  consequent,  to  pro- 
pose light  suppers  at  the  Kursaal  or  drives  by  moonlight 
to  the  Castle,  to  be  always  arrayed  and  anointed,  trinketed 
and  gloved — that  to  move  in  such  society,  we  say,  though 
it  might  be  a  privilege,  was  a  privilege  vrith.  a  penalty 
attached.  But  the  tables  made  such  things  easy ;  half  the 
Baden  world  lived  by  the  tables.  lloderick  tried  them 
and  found  them  at  first  a  wonderful  help.  The  help 
however  was  only  momentary,  for  he  soon  perceived  that 
to  seem  to  have  money,  and  to  have  it  in  fact,  exposed 
a  good-looking  young  man  to  peculiar  liabilities.  At 
this  point  of  his  friend's  narrative  Rowland  was  re- 
minded of  Madame  de  Cruchecassee  in  Thackeray's  novel, 
and  though  he  had  listened  in  tranquil  silence  to  the  rest 
of  it,  he  found  it  hard  not  to  say  that  all  this  had  been 
under  the  circumstances  a  very  bad  business.  lloderick 
admitted  it  with  bitterness,  and  then  told  how  much — 
measured  simply  financially — it  had  cost  him.  His  luck 
had  changed  ;  the  tables  had  ceased  to  back  him,  and  he 
had  found  himself  up  to  his  knees  in  debt.  Every  penny 
had  gone  of  the  solid  sum  which  had  seemed  a  large  equi- 
valent of  those  shining  statues  in  Rome.  He  had  been  an 
ass,  but  it  was  not  irreparable ;  he  could  make  another 
statue  in  a  couple  of  months. 

Rowland  frowned.  "  For  heaven's  sake,"  he  said,  "  don't 
play  such  dangerous  games  with  your  facility.  If  you  have 
got  facility,  revere  it,  respect  it,  adore  it,  hoard  it — don't 
speculate  on  it."     And  he  wondered  what  his  companion, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  95 

up  to  his  knees  in  debt,  would  have  done  if  there  had  been 
no  good-natured  Rowhxnd  Mallet  to  lend  a  helping  hand. 
But  he  did  not  express  his  curiosity  audibly,  and  the  con- 
tingency seemed  not  to  have  presented  itself  to  Roderick's 
imagination.  The  young  sculptor  reverted  to  his  late 
adventures  again  in  the  evening,  and  this  time  talked  of 
them  more  objectively,  as  the  phrase  is  ;  more  as  if  they 
had  been  the  adventures  of  another  person.  He  related 
half  a  dozen  droll  things  that  had  happened  to  him,  and, 
as  if  his  responsibility  had  been  disengaged  by  all  this 
free  discussion,  he  laughed  extravagantly  at  the  memory  of 
them.  Eowland  sat  perfectly  grave,  on  principle.  Then 
Roderick  began  to  talk  of  half  a  dozen  statues  that  he  had 
in  his  head,  and  set  forth  his  ideas  with  his  usual  vivid- 
ness. Suddenly,  as  it  was  relevant,  he  declared  that  his 
Baden  doings  had  not  been  altogether  fruitless,  for  the 
lady  who  had  reminded  Rowland  of  Madame  de  Cruchecassee 
was  tremendously  statuesque.  Rowland  at  last  said  that 
such  experiments  might  pass  if  one  felt  one  was  really  the 
wiser  for  them.  "  By  the  wiser,"  he  added,  "  I  mean  the 
stronger  in  purpose,  in  wilL" 

"  Oh  don't  talk  about  will!  "  Roderick  answered,  throw- 
ing back  his  head  and  looking  at  the  stars.  This  conver- 
sation also  took  place  in  the  open  air,  on  the  little  island 
in  the  shooting  Rhone,  where  Jean-Jacques  has  a  monu- 
ment. "  The  will,  I  believe,  is  the  mystery  of  mysteries. 
Who  can  answer  for  his  will  1  who  can  say  beforehand  that 
it's  strong?  There  are  all  kinds  of  indefinable  currents 
moving  to  and  fro  betweenone's  will  and  one's  inclinations. 
People  talk  as  if  the  two" things  were  essentially  distinct; 
on  different  sides  of  one's  organism,  like  the  heart  and  the 
liver.  Mine  I  know  are  much  nearer  together.  It  all 
depends  upon  circumstances.  I  believe  there  is  a  certain 
group  of  circumstances  possible  for  every  man,  in  which 
his  will  is  destined  to  snap  like  a  dry  twig." 

i"My  dear  boy,"  said  Rowland,  "don't  talk  about  the 
wilff  being  '  destined.'  The  will  is  destiny  itself.  That's 
the  way  to  look  at  it." 

"Look  at  it,  my  dear  Rowland,"  Roderick  answered, 
"  as  you  find  most  comfortable.  One  conviction  I  have 
gathered  from  my  summer's  experience,"  he  went  on — 
"  it's  as  well  to  look  it  frankly  in  the  face— is  that  I  possess 


96  RODEKICK  HUDSON. 

an  almost  unlimited  susceptibility  to  the  influence  of  a 
beautiful  woman." 

Rowland  stared,  then  strolled  away,  softly  whistling  to 
himself.  He  was  unwilling  to  admit  even  to  himself  that 
this  speech  had  really  the  ominous  meaning  it  seemed  to 
have.  In  a  few  days  the  two  young  men  made  their  way 
back  to  Italy,  and  lingered  a  while  in  Florence  before 
going  on  to  Rome.  In  Florence  Roderick  seemed  to  have 
won  back  his  old  innocence  and  his  preference  for  the 
pleasures  of  study.  Rowland  began  to  think  of  the  Baden 
episode  as  a  bad  dream,  or  at  the  worst  as  a  mere  sporadic 
escapade,  without  roots  in  his  companion's  character.  They 
passed  a  fortnight  looking  at  pictiu-es  and  exploring  for  out 
of  the  way  fragments  of  fresco  and  carving,  and  Roderick 
recovered  all  his  earlier  energy  of  appreciation  and  criticism. 
In  Pi-ome  he  went  eagerly  to  work  again,  and  finished  in  a 
month  two  or  three  small  things  he  had  left  standing  on 
his  departure.  He  talked  the  most  joyous  nonsense  about 
finding  himself  back  in  his  old  quarters.  On  the  first 
Sunday  afternoon  following  their  return,  on  their  going 
together  to  Saint  Peter's,  he  delivered  himself  of  a  lyrical 
greeting  to  the  great  church  and  to  the  city  in  general, 
in  a  tone  of  voice  so  irrepressibly  elevated  that  it  rang 
through  the  nave  in  an  almost  scandalous  fashion  and 
arrested  a  procession  of  canons  who  were  marching  across 
to  the  choir.  He  began  to  model  a  new  statue — a  female 
figure  of  which  he  had  said  nothing  to  Rowland.  It  re- 
presented a  woman  leaning  lazily  back  in  her  chair,  with 
her  head  drooping  as  if  she  were  listening,  a  vague  smile 
on  her  lips  and  a  pair  of  remarkably  beautiful  arms  folded 
in  her  lap.  With  rather  less  softness  of  contour  it  would 
have  resembled  the  n(5ble  statue  of  Agrippina  in  the 
Capitol.  Rowland  looked  at  it  and  was  not  sure  he  liked 
it.     "  Who  is  it  1  what  does  it  mean  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Anything  you  please  I  "  said  Roderick,  with  a  certain 
petulance.     "  I  call  it  '  A  Lady  Listening.'  " 

Rowland  then  remembered  that  one  of  the  Baden  listeners 
had  been  "  statuesque,"  and  asked  no  more  questions.  This 
after  all  was  a  way  of  profiting  by  experience.  A  few  days 
later  he  took  his  first  ride  of  the  season  on  the  Campagna, 
and  as  on  his  homeward  way  he  was  passing  across  the 
long  shadow  of  a  ruined  tower,  he  perceived  a  small  figure 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  97 

at  a  short  distance,  bent  over  a  sketch-book.  As  he  drew 
near  he  recognised  his  friend  Singleton.  The  honest  little 
painter's  face  was  .scorched  to  fiiime-coloiir  by  the  light  of 
southern  suns,  and  borrowed  an  even  deeper  crimson  from 
his  gleeful  greeting  of  his  most  appreciative  patron.  He 
was  making  a  careful  and  charming  little  sketch.  On 
Rowland's  asking  him  how  he  had  spent  his  summer  he 
gave  an  account  of  his  wanderings  which  made  our  poor 
friend  sigh  with  a  sense  of  more  contrasts  than  one.  He 
had  not  been  out  of  Italy,  but  he  had  been  delving  deep 
into  the  picturesque  heart  of  the  lovely  land  and  gathering 
a  wonderful  store  of  subjects.  He  had  rambled  about 
among  the  unvisited  villages  of  the  Apennines,  pencil  in 
hand  and  knapsack  on  back,  sleeping  on  straw  and  eating 
black  bread  and  beans,  but  feasting  on  local  colour,  rioting 
on  chiaroscuro,  and  laying  up  a  treasure  of  reminiscencosTj 
He  took  a  devout  satisfaction  in  his  hard-earned  knowledge 
and  his  happy  frugality.  Rowland  went  the  next  day  by 
appointment  to  look  at  his  sketches,  and  spent  a  whole 
morning  turning  them  over.  Singleton  talked  more  thaii 
he  had  ever  done  before,  explained  them  all,  and  told  some 
comical  anecdote  about  the  production  of  each. 

"  Dear  me,  how  I  have  chattered  ! "  he  said,  at  last.  "  I 
am  afraid  you  would  rather  have  looked  at  the  things  in 
peace  and  quiet.  I  didn't  know  I  could  talk  so  much.  But 
somehow  I  feel  very  happy  ;  I  feel  as  if  I  had  improved." 

"■  That  you  have,"  said  Rowland.  "  I  doubt  whether 
an  artist  ever  got  more  out  of  three  months.  You  must 
feel  much  more  sure  of  yourself." 

Singleton  looked  for  a  long  time  with  great  intentness 
at  a  knot  in  the  floor.  "  Yes,"  he  said  at  last  in  a  liuttered 
tone,  "  I  feel  much  more  sure  of  myself.  I  have  got  more 
facility  !  "  And  he  lowered  his  voice  as  if  he  were  com- 
municating a  secret  which  it  took  some  courage  to  impart. 
''  I  hardly  like  to  say  it,  for  fear  I  should  after  all  be  mis- 
taken. But  since  it  strikes  you,  perhaps  it's  true.  It's  a 
great  happiness ;  I  would  not  exchange  it  for  a  great  deal 
of  money." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  it's  a  great  happiness,"  said  Rowland. 
"  I  shall  really  think  of  you  as  living  here  in  a  state  of 
scandalous  bliss.  I  don't  believe  it's  good  for  an  artist  to 
be  in  such  brutally  high  spirits." 

G 


98  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Singleton  stared  for  a  moment,  as  if  he  thought  Rowhmd 
was  in  earnest ;  then  suddenly  fathoming  the  kindly  jest, 
he  walked  about  the  room  agitating  his  head  and  laughing 
intensely  to  himself.  "And  Mr.  Hudson  T'  he  said,  as 
Rowland  was  going ;  "  I  hope  he  is  well  and  happy." 

*'  He  is  very  well,"  said  Rowland.  "  He  is  back  at 
work  again." 

"  Ah,  there's  a  man,"  cried  Singleton,  ''  who  has  taken 
his  start  once  for  all  and  doesn't  need  to  stop  and  ask 
himself  in  fear  and  trembling  every  month  or  two  whether 
he  is  going  on.  When  he  stops,  it's  to  rest !  And  where 
did  he  spend  his  summer  ]  " 

•*  The  greater  part  of  it  at  Baden-Baden." 

"  Ah,  that's  in  the  Black  Forest,"  cried  Singleton,  with 
profound  simplicity.  "They  say  you  can  make  capital 
studies  of  trees  there." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Rowland,  with  a  smile,  laying  an 
almost  paternal  hand  on  the  little  artist's  stooping  shoulder. 
"  Unhappily,  trees  are  not  Roderick's  line.  Nevertheless 
he  tells  me  that  at  Baden  he  made  some  studies.  Come 
when  you  can,  by  the  way,"  he  added  after  a  moment,  "  to 
his  studio,  and  tell  me  what  you  think  of  something  he 
has  lately  begun."  Singleton  declared  that  he  would  come 
delightedly,  and  Rowland  left  him  at  his  work. 

He  met  a  number  of  his  last  winter's  friends  and  found 
that  Madame  Grandoni,  Miss  Blanchard  and  Gloriani  had 
again  taken  up  the  golden  thread  of  Roman  life.  The 
ladies  gave  an  excellent  account  of  themselves.  Madame 
Grandoni  had  been  taking  sea-baths  at  Rimini,  and  Miss 
Blanchard  painting  wild  Howers  in  the  Tyrol.  Her  com- 
plexion was  somewhat  browned,  which  was  very  becoming, 
and  her  flowers  were  uncommonly  pretty.  Gloriani  had 
been  in  Paris  and  had  come  away  in  high  good-humour, 
finding  no  one  there  in  the  artist-world  cleverer  than 
himself.  He  came  in  a  few  days  to  Roderick's  studio,  one 
afternoon  when  Rowland  was  present.  He  examined  the 
new  statue  with  great  deference,  said  it  was  very  promising, 
and  abstained  considerately  from  irritating  prophecies.  But 
Rowland  fancied  he  observed  certain  signs  of  inward  jubi- 
lation on  the  clever  sculptor's  part,  and  walked  away  with 
'him  to  learn  his  private  opinion. 

*<  Certainly;    I    liked    it    as  well    as    I    said,"   Gloriani 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  99 

declared,  in  answer  to  Rowland's  anxious  query ;  "  or 
rather  I  liked  it  a  great  deal  better.  I  didn't  say  how 
much,  for  fear  of  making  your  friend  angry.  But  one  can 
leave  him  alone  now,  for  he's  coming  round,  I  told  you 
he  couldn't  keep  up  the  transcendental  style,  and  he 
has  already  broken  down.  Don't  you  see  it  yourself, 
man  1 " 

"I  don't  particularly  like  this  new  statue,"  said  Row- 
land, 

"  That's  because  you  are  a  purist.  It's  deuced  clever, 
it's  deuced  knowing,  it's  deuced  pretty,  but  it  isn't  the 
topping  high  art  of  three  months  ago.  He  has  taken  his 
turn  sooner  than  I  supposed.  What  has  happened  to  him  ? 
Has  he  been  disappointed  in  love?  But  that's  none  of 
my  business.  I  congratulate  him  on  having  become  a 
practical  man." 

Roderick,  however,  was  less  to  be  congratulated  than 
Gloriani  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  believe.  He  was 
discontented  with  his  work,  he  applied  himself  to  it  by 
fits  and  starts,  he  declared  that  he  didn't  know  what 
was  coming  over  him ;  he  was  turning  into  a  man  of  moods. 
"  Is  this  of  necessity  what  a  fellow  must  come  to,"— he 
asked  of  Rowland,  with  a  sort  of  peremptory  flash  in  his 
eye,  which  seemed  to  implj"  that  his  companion  had  under- 
taken to  insure  him  against  perplexities  and  was  not  ful- 
filling his  contract — "  this  damnable  uncertainty  when  one 
goes  to  bed  at  night  as  to  whether  one  is  going  to  wake 
up  in  an  ecstasy  or  in  a  tantrum  1  Have  we  only  a  season, 
over  before  we  know  it,  in  which  we  can  call  our  faculties 
our  own  1  Six  months  ago  I  could  stand  up  to  my  work  like 
a  man,  day  after  day,  and  never  dream  of  asking  myself 
how  I  felt.  But  now,  some  mornings,  it's  the  very  devil 
to  get  going.  My  statue  looks  so  bad  when  I  come  into 
the  studio  that  I  have  twenty  minds  to  smash  it  on  the 
spot,  and  I  lose  three  or  four  hours  in  sitting  there  moping 
and  getting  used  to  it." 

Rowland  said  that  he  supposed  that  this  sort  of  thing 
was  the  lot  of  every  artist,  and  that  the  only  remedy  was 
plenty  of  courage  and  faith.  And  he  reminded  him  of 
Gloriani' s  having  forewarned  him  against  these  sterile 
moods  the  year  before. 

"  Gloriani's  an  ass  1  "  said  Roderick,  almost  fiercelv.    He 

G  2"' 


100  RDDKKICK  IIUDSDN. 

hired  a  horse  and  hoiran  to  ride  with  Rowland  on  the 
CaTn])fi,'na.  This  deli<,'htfiil  amusement  restored  him  in 
a  measure  to  cheerfulness,  b  it  it  seemed  to  Eowland  on 
the  whole  not  to  stimulate  his  industry.  Their  rides  were 
always  very  long,  and  lioderick  insisted  on  making  them 
longer  by  dismounting  in  picturesque  spots  and  stretch- 
ing himself  in  the  sun  among  a  heap  of  over-tangled 
stones.  ^  He  let  the  scorching  lloman  luminary  beat  down 
upon  him  with  a  bravery  which  Rowland  found  it  hard  to 
emulated  But  in  this  situation  Roderick  talked  so  much 
amusing  nonsense  that  for  the  sake  of  his  company  Row- 
land consented  to  be  uncomfortable,  and  often  forgot  that, 
though  in  tliese  diversions  the  days  passed  quickly,  they 
brought  forth  neither  high  art  nor  low.  And  yet  it  was 
perhaps  by  their  help  after  all  that  Roderick  secured  several 
mornings  of  ardent  work  on  his  new  figure  and  brought  it 
to  rapid  comnlotifm.  One  afternoon  when  it  was  finished 
R,ov/land  went  to  look  at  it  and  Roderick  asked  him  for 
his  opinion. 

"  What  do  you  think  yourself  1  "  Rowland  demanded — 
not  from  pusillanimity  but  from  real  uncertainly. 

"  I  think  it  is  curiously  bad,"  Roderick  answered.  '*  It 
was  bad  from  the  first ;  it  has  fundamental  vices.  I  have 
shufiled  them  out  of  sight  in  a  sort  of  way,  but  I  have  not 
corrected  them.  I  can't— I  can't — I  can't ! "  he  cried 
passionately.  "They  stare  me  in  the  face — they  are  all 
I  see  !  " 

Rowland  offered  several  criticisms  of  detail  and  suggested 
certain  practicable  changes.  But  Roderick  differed  with 
him  on  each  of  these  points  ;  the  thing  had  faults  enough, 
but  they  were  not  those  faults.  Rowland  unruffled,  con- 
cluded by  saying  that  whatever  its  faults  might  be,  he  had 
an  idea  people  in  general  would  like  it. 

"  I  wish  to  heaven  some  person  in  particular  would  buy 
it,  and  take  it  oft"  my  hands  and  out  of  my  sight ! " 
Roderick  cried.  ""What  am  I  to  do  now?"  he  went  on. 
"  I  haven't  an  idea.  I  think  of  subjects,  but  they  remain 
mere  lifeless  names.  They  are  mere  words — they  are  not 
images.     What  am  I  to  do  '^  " 

Rowland  was  a  trifle  annoyed.  "  Be  a  man,"  he  was  on 
the,  point  of  saying,  "  and  don't,  for  heaven's  sake,  talk  in 
that  confoundedly  querulous  voice  ! "     But  before  he  had 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  101 

uttered  the  words  there  rang  through  the  studio  a  load 
peremptory  ring  at  the  outer  door. 

Koderick  broke  into  a  laugh.  "Talk  of  the  devil  and 
you  see  his  horns  !  If  that's  not  a  customer  it  oi-ght  to 
be." 


VIII. 

The  door  of  the  studio  was  promptly  flung  open,  and 
a  lady  advanced  to  the  threshold — a,n  imposing  voluminous 
person  who  quite  filled  up  the  doorway.  Kowland  im- 
mediately felt  that  he  had  seen  her  before,  but  he  recog- 
nised her  only  when  she  moved  forward  and  disclosed  an 
attendant  in  the  person  of  a  little  bright -eyed  elderly 
gentleman  with  a  bristling  white  moustache.  Then  he 
remembered  that  just  a  year  before  he  and  his  companion 
had  seen  in  the  Liidovisi  gardens  a  wonderfully  beautiful 
girl  strolling  in  the  train  of  this  conspicuous  couple.  He 
looked  for  her  now,  and  in  a  moment  she  appeared,  follow- 
ing her  companions  with  the  same  maidenly  majesty  as 
before,  and  leading  her  great  snow-white  poodle,  who  was 
decorated  as  before  with  motley  ribbons.  The  elder  lady 
offered  the  two  young  men  a  sufficiently  gracious  salute  ; 
the  little  old  gentleman  bowed  and  smiled  with  extreme 
alertness.  The  young  girl,  without  casting  a  glance  either 
at  Roderick  or  at  Rowland,  looked  about  for  a  chair,  and, 
on  perceiving  one,  sank  into  it  listlessly,  pulled  her  poodle 
towards  her  and  began  to  re-arrange  his  top-knot.  Row- 
land saw  that,  even  with  her  eyes  dropped,  her  beauty 
was  still  dazzling. 

"  I  trust  w^e  are  at  liberty  to  enter,"  said  the  elder  lady 
with  urbanity.  "  We  were  told  that  Mr.  Hudson  had  no 
fixed  day,  and  that  we  might  come  at  any  time.  Let  us 
not  disturb  you." 

Roderick,  as  one  of  the  newer  lights  of  the  Roman  art- 
world,  had  not  hitherto  been  subject  to  incursions  from 
inquisitive  tourists,  and,  having  no  regular  reception  day, 
was  not  versed  in  the  usual  arts  of  hospitality.     He  said 


102  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

nothing,  and  Rowland,  looking  at  him,  saw  that  he  was 
gazing  amazedly  at  the  young  girl,  and  was  apparently 
unconscious  of  everything  else.  "  By  Jove  !  "  he  cried 
precipitately,  "it's  that  goddess  of  the  ^■illa  Ludovisi !  " 
Kowland,  in  some  confusion,  did  the  honours  as  he  could, 
but  the  little  old  gentleman  begged  him  with  the  most 
obsetpiious  of  smiles  to  give  himself  no  trouble.  "  I  have 
been  in  many  a  studio  !  "  he  said,  with  his  linger  in  the 
air,  and  a  strong  Italian  accent. 

"  We  are  going  about  everywhere,"  said  his  companion. 
"  I  am  passionately  fond  of  art  !  " 

Rowland  smiled  sympathetically  and  let  them  turn  to 
Roderick's  statue.  He  glanced  again  at  the  young  sculptor, 
to  invite  him  to  bestir  himself,  but  Roderick  was  still 
staring  wide-eyed  at  the  beautiful  young  mistress  of  the 
poodle,  who  by  this  time  had  looked  up  and  >vas  gazing 
straight  at  him.  There  was  nothing  bold  in  her  look  ;  it 
expressed  a  kind  of  languid  imperturbable  indifference. 
Her  beauty  was  extraordinary ;  it  grew^  and  grew  as  the 
young  man  observed  her.  In  such  a  face  the  maidenly 
custom  of  averted  eyes  and  ready  blushes  would  have 
seemed  an  anomaly ;  nature  had  produced  it  for  man's 
delight  and  meant  that  it  should  surrender  itself  freely 
and  coldly  to  admiration.  It  was  not  immediately  ap- 
parent however  that  the  young  lady  found  an  answering 
entertainment  in  the  phy.^iognomy  of  her  host ;  she  turned 
her  head  after  a  moment  and  looked  idly  ronnd  the 
room,  and  at  last  let  her  eyes  rest  on  the  statue  of  the 
woman  seated.  It  being  left  to  Rowland  to  stimulate 
conversation,  he  began  by  complimenting  her  on  the 
beauty  of  her  dog. 

*'  Yes,  he  is  very  hand^ome,"  she  murmured.  "  He  is 
a  Florentine.  The  dogs  in  Florence  are  handsomer  than 
the  people,"  and  on  Rowland's  caressing  him — '*  His  name 
is  Stenterello,"  she  added.  ''  Stenterello,  give  your  hand  to 
the  gentleman."  This  order  was  given  in  Italian.  "  Say 
huoyi  giorno  a  Lei^ 

Stenterello  thrust  out  his  paw  and  gave  four  short  shrill 
barks  ;  upon  which  the  elder  lady  turned  round  and  raised 
her  forelinarer. 

'*  My  dear,  my  dear,  rememi^er  where  you  are  !  Excuse 
my  foolish  child,"    she  added,   turning  to  Roderick  with 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  103 

an  agreeable  smile.  "  She  can  think  of  nothing  but  her 
poodle." 

"  I  am  teaching  him  to  talk  for  me,"  the  young  girl 
went  on,  without  heeding  her  mother ;  *'  to  say  little 
things  in  society.  It  will  save  me  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 
Stenterello,  love,  give  a  pretty  smile  and  say  tanti  com- 
■plimentil "  The  poodle  wagged  his  white  pate — it  looked 
like  one  of  those  little  pads  in  swan's-down,  for  applying 
powder  to  the  face — and  repeated  the  barking  jirocess. 

"He  is  a  wonderful  beast,''  said  Eowland. 

"He  is  not  a  beast,"  said  the  young  girl.  "A  beast  is 
something  black  and  dirty — something  you  can't  touch." 

"  He  is  a  very  valuable  dog,"  the  elder  lady  explained. 
"  He  was  presented  to  my  daughter  by  a  Florentine 
nobleman." 

"It  is  not  for  that  I  care  about  him.  It  is  for  himself. 
He  is  better  than  the  Duke  !  " 

"  My  precious  love  !  "  exclaimed  the  mother  in  depre- 
cating accents,  but  with  a  significant  glance  at  Rowland 
which  seemed  to  bespeak  his  attention  to  the  glory  of 
possessing  a  daughter  who  could  deal  in  that  light  fashion 
with  the  aristocracy. 

Rowland  remembered  that  when  their  unknown  visitors 
had  passed  before  them,  a  year  previous,  in  the  Villa 
Ludovisi,  Roderick  and  he  had  exchanged  conjectures  as 
to  their  nationality  and  social  quality.  Roderick  had 
declared  that  they  were  old-world  people ;  but  Rowland 
now  needed  no  telling  to  feel  that  he  might  claim  the 
elder  lady  as  a  fellow-countrywoman.  She  was  a  person  of 
what  is  called  a  great  deal  of  presence,  with  the  faded  traces, 
artfully  revived  here  and  there,  of  once  brilliant  beauty. 
Her  daughter  had  come  lawfully  by  her  loveliness,  but 
Rowland  mentally  made  the  distinction  that  the  mother 
was  silly,  and  the  daughter  was  not.  The  mother  had  a 
fatuous  countenance — a  countenance,  Rowland  suspected, 
capable  of  expressing  an  inordinate  degree  of  fatviity.  The 
young  girl,  in  spite  of  her  childish  satisfaction  in  her 
poodle,  was  not  a  person  of  a  weak  understanding.  Rowland 
received  an  impression  that  for  reasons  of  her  own  she 
was  playing  a  part.  What  was  the  part  and  what  were 
her  reasons  1  She  was  interesting ;  Rowland  wondered 
what  were  her  domestic  secrets.      If  her  mother  were  a 


104  HODEKICK  HUDSON. 

daii<^litor  of  tlu>  jL'reat  ilopublic  it  was  to  be  supposed  that 
the  yoimg  girl  was  a  Hower  of  the  American  soil ;  but  her 
beauty  had  a  lari^^e  lirmness  that  is  uncommon  in  the  some- 
what relaxed  robustness  of  our  western  maidenhood.  She 
spoke  with  a  vague  foreign  accent,  as  if  she  had  spent  her 
life  in  strange  countries.  The  little  Italian  apparently 
divined  Rowland's  mute  imaginings,  for  he  presently 
stepped  forward,  with  a  bow  like  a  master  of  ceremonies. 
"  I  have  not  done  my  duty,"  he  said  "  in  not  announcing 
these  h'.dies.     Mrs.  Light,  Miss  Light !  " 

Kowland  was  not  materi;illy  the  wiser  for  this  information, 
but  Koderick  was  aroused  by  it  to  the  exercise  of  some 
slight  civility.  He  altered  the  light,  pulled  forward  two 
or  three  figures  and  made  an  apology  for  not  having  more 
to  show.  "I  don't  pretend  to  have  anything  of  an  ex- 
hibition— I  am  only  a  novice." 

''Indeed?— a  novice!  For  a  novice  this  is  very  well," 
Mrs.  Light  declared.  "  Cavaliere,  we  have  seen  nothing 
better  than  this." 

The  Cavaliere  smiled  rapturously.  "  It  is  stupendous  !  " 
he  murmured.     "  And  Ave  have  been  to  all  the  studios." 

"Not  to  all— Heaven  forbid  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Light.  "  But 
to  a  number  that  I  have  had  pointed  out  by  artistic  friends. 
I  delight  in  studios — I  should  have  been  so  happy  myself 
to  be  "a  little  quiet  artist !  And  if  you  are  a  novice,  Mr. 
Hudson,"  she  went  on,  "  you  have  already  great  admirers. 
Half  a  dozen  people  have  told  us  that  yours  were  quite 
among  ^e  things  to  see."  This  gracious  speech  went 
unanswered ;  Roderick  had  already  wandered  across  to 
the  other  side  of  the  studio  and  v/as  revolving  about 
Miss  Light.  "  Ah,  he's  gone  to  look  at  my  beautiful 
daughter;  he  is  not  the  first  that  has  had  his  head 
turned,"  Mrs.  Light  resumed,  lowering  her  voice  to  a 
confidential  undertone;  a  favour  w^hich,  considering  the 
shortness  of  their  acquaintance,  Rowland  was  bound  to 
appreciate.  "  The  artists  are  all  crazy  about  her.  When 
she  goes  into  a  studio  she  is  fatal  to  the  pictures.  And 
when  she  goes  into  the  ball-room  what  do  the  other  women 
say  ?     Eh,  Cavaliere  ?  " 

'"  She  is  very  beautiful,"  Rowland  said,  simply. 

Mrs.  Light,  who  through  her  long  gold-cased  glasses  was 
looking  a  little  at  everything  and  at  nothing  as  if  she  saw 


RODKRICK  HUDSON.  105 

it,  interrupted  her  random  murmurs  and  exclamations  aud 
surveyed  Kowland  from  head  to  toot.  She  looki^d  at  him 
all  over  ;  apparently  he  had  not  been  mentioned  to  her  :is 
a  feature  of  Eoderick's  esta})iishment.  It  was  the  gaze, 
Rowland  felt,  which  the  vigilant  and  ambitious  mother 
of  a  beautiful  daughter  has  always  at  her  command  for 
well-appointed  young  men.  Her  inspection  in  this  case 
seemed  satisfactory.  "Are  you  also  an  artist?"  she  in- 
(]uired  with  an  almost  affectionate  inflection.  It  was  clear 
that  what  she  meant  was  something  of  this  kind  ;  "  Be  so 
good  as  to  assure  me  without  delay  that  you  are  really  the 
amiable  young  man  of  fortune  that  you  appear." 

But  Pvowland  answered  simply  the  formal  question — not 
the  latent  one.  ''  Dear  me,  no ;  I  am  only  a  friend  of 
Mr.  Hudson." 

Mrs.  Light,  with  a  sigh,  returned  to  the  statues,  and 
after  mistaking  the  Adam  for  a  gladiator  and  the  Eve  for 
a  gipsy,  declared  that  she  could  not  judge  of  such  things 
unless  she  saw  them  in  the  marble.  Rowland  hesitated  a 
moment  and  then,  speaking  in  the  interest  of  Roderick's 
renown,  said  that  he  was  the  happy  possessor  of  several  of 
his  friend's  works  and  that  she  was  welcome  to  come  and 
see  them  at  his  rooms.  She  bade  the  Cavaliere  make  a  note 
of  his  address.  "Ah,  you  are  a  patron  of  the  arts,"  she 
said.  "  That's  what  I  should  like  to  be  if  I  had  a  little 
money.  I  revel  in  beauty  in  every  form.  But  all  these 
people  ask  such  monstrous  prices.  One  must  be  a  million- 
aire to  think  of  such  things,  eh  1  Twenty  years  ago  my 
husband  had  my  portrait  painted,  here  in  Rome,  by  Papucci, 
who  was  the  great  man  in  those  days.  I  was  in  a  ball- 
dress,  with  all  my  jewels,  and  my  shoulders  and  arms — 
which  were  not  a  petite  affaire.  The  man  got  six  hundred 
francs  and  thought  he  was  very  well  treated.  Those  were 
the  days  when  a  family  could  live  like  princes  in  Italy  for 
five  thousand  scudi  a  year.  The  Cavaliere  once  upon  a  time 
was  a  great  dandy — don't  blush,  Cavaliere  ;  any  one  can  see 
that,  just  as  any  one  can  see  what  I  was  !  Get  him  to  tell 
you  what  he  made  a  figure  upon.  The  railroads  have 
brought  in  the  vulgarians.  That's  what  I  call  it  now — 
the  invasion  of  the  vulgarians!  What  are  poor  loe  to 
do?" 

Rowland  had  begun  to  murmur  some  remedial  proposition 


100  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

^vllen  he  was  interrupted  by  the  voice  of  Miss  Light  calling 
across  the  room,  *'  Mamma !  " 

"  My  own  love  ?  " 

"  This  gentleman  wishes  to  model  my  bust.  Please 
speak  to  him." 

The  Cavaliere  gave  a  little  chuckle.  "  Already  1  "  he 
cried. 

Kowland  looked  round,  equally  surprised  at  the  promp- 
titude of  the  proposal.  Roderick  stood  planted  before  the 
young  girl  with  his  arms  folded,  looking  at  her  as  he  would 
have  done  at  the  Medicean  Venus.  He  never  paid  compli- 
ments, and  Rowland,  though  he  had  not  heard  him  speak, 
could  imagine  the  startling  distinctness  with  which  he 
made  his  request. 

"  He  saw  me  a  year  ago,"  the  young  girl  went  on,  "  and 
he  has  been  thinking  of  me  ever  since.  '  Her  tone  in 
speaking  was  peculiar  ;  it  had  a  kind  of  studied  inexpres- 
siveness  which  was  yet  not  the  vulgar  device  of  a  drawl. 

"  I  must  make  your  daughter's  bust— that's  all  madam  !  " 
cried  Roderick  with  warmth, 

"  I  would  rather  you  should  make  the  poodle's,"  said 
the  young  girl.  "  Is  it  very  tiresome'^  I  have  spent  half 
my  life  sitting  for  my  photograph,  in  every  conceivable 
attitude  and  with  every  conceivable  coilfure.  I  think  I 
have  posed  enough." 

*'My  dear  child,"  said  Mrs.  Light,  "it  may  be  one's 
duty  to  pose  !  But  as  to  my  daughter's  sitting  to  you, 
sir — to  a  young  artist  whom  we  don't  know — it  is  a  matter 
that  one  must  look  at  a  little.  It  is  not  a  favour  that's 
to  be  had  for  the  mere  asking," 

"If  I  don't  make  her  from  life,"  said  Roderick  with 
energy,  "  I  will  make  her  from  memory,  and  if  the  thing's 
to  be  done  you  had  better  have  it  done  as  well  as 
possible." 

"Mamma  hesitates,"  said  Miss  Light,  "because  she 
doesn't  know  whether  you  mean  she  shall  pay  you  for  the 
bust.  I  can  assure  you  that  she  will  not  pay  you  a 
sou." 

"  My  daughter,  you  forget  yourself,"  said  Mrs.  Light, 
with  an  attempt  at  a  high  tone.  "  Of  course,"  she  added 
in  a  moment,  with  a  change  of  note,  "  the  bust  would  be 
my  own  property." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  107 

"  Of  course  !  "  cried  Roderick,  impatiently. 

"  Dearest  mother,"  interposed  the  young  girl,  "  how  can 
you  carry  a  marble  bust  about  the  world  with  you  1  Is  it 
not  enough  to  drag  the  poor  original  1 " 

''  My  dear,  you  are  nonsensical !  "  cried  Mrs.  Light, 
almost  angrily. 

"  You  can  always  sell  it,"  said  the  young  girl,  with  the 
same  artful  artlessness. 

Mrs.  Light  turned  to  Rowland,  who  pitied  her,  flushed 
and  irritated.      "  She  is  very  wicked  to-day  !  " 

The  Cavaliere  grinned  in  silence  and  walked  away  on 
tiptoe,  Avith  his  hat  to  his  lips,  as  if  to  leave  the  field  clear 
for  action.  Rowland  on  the  contrary  wished  to  mediate. 
"  You  had  better  not  refuse,"  he  said  to  Miss  Light,  "  until 
you  have  seen  Mr.  Hudson's  things  in  the  marble.  Your 
mother  is  to  come  and  look  at  some  that  I  possess." 

"  Thank  you  ;  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  see  us.  I  dare 
say  Mr.  Hudson  is  very  clever ;  but  I  don't  care  for  modern 
sculpture.     I  can't  look  at  it !  " 

"  You  shall  care  for  my  bust,  I  promise  you  !  "  cried 
Roderick,  with  a  laugh. 

"  To  satisfy  Miss  Light,"  said  the  Cavaliere,  "  one  of 
the  old  Greeks  ought  to  come  to  life." 

"  It  would  be  worth  his  while,"  said  Roderick,  paying, 
to  Rowland's  knowledge,  his  first  compliment. 

"  1  might  sit  to  Phidias,  if  he  would  promise  to  be  very 
amusing  and  make  me  laugh.  What  do  you  say,  Stenterello? 
would  you  sit  to  Phidias  1 " 

"  We  must  talk  of  this  some  other  time,"  said  Mrs. 
Light.  "  We  are  in  Rome  for  the  winter.  Many  thanks. 
Cavaliere,  call  the  carriage."  The  Cavaliere  led  the  way 
out,  backing  like  a  silver-stick,  and  Miss  Light  following 
her  mother,  nodded  without  looking  at  them,  to  each  of 
the  young  men. 

"  Immortal  powers,  what  a  head  !  "  cried  Roderick,  when 
they  were  gone.     "  There's  my  fortune  !  " 

"  Rhe  is  certainly  very  beautiful,"  said  Rowland.  "  But 
I  am  sorry  you  have  undertaken  her  bust." 

"  And  why,  pray  ?  " 

"  I  suspect  it  will  bring  trouble  with  it." 

"  What  kind  of  trouble  1  " 

"  I  hardly  know.     They  are  queer  people.     The  mamma, 


108  RODEIUCK  HUDSON. 

1  suspoct,  is  a  bit  of  an  adveniiress.  Heaven  knows  what 
the  daughter  is." 

**  She's  a  goddess  !  "  cried  Roderick. 

"  Just  so.     She  is  all  the  more  dangerous." 

"  Daujrerous  ?  What  will  she  do  to  me  'I  She  doesn't 
bite,  I  imagine." 

"  It  remains  to  be  seen.  There  are  two  kinds  of  women 
— you  ought  to  know  by  this  time — the  safe  and  the 
unsafe.  Miss  Light,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  is  one  of  the 
unsafe.     A  word  to  the  wise  !  " 


"  Much  obliged  !  "  said  Roderick,  and  he  began  to  whistle 
a  triumphant  air,  in  honour  apparently  of  the  advent  of 
his  beautiful  model. 

In  calling  this  young  lady  and  her  mamma  queer  people 
Rowland  but  roughly  expressed  his  sentiment.  They  were 
so  marked  a  variation  from  the  monotonous  troop  of  his 
compatriots  that  he  felt  much  curiosity  as  to  the  sources 
of  the  change,  especially  since  he  doubted  greatly  whether 
on  the  whole  it  elevated  the  type.  For  a  week  he  saw  the 
two  ladies  driving  daily  in  a  well-appointed  landau,  with 
the  Cavaliere  and  the  poodle  in  the  front  seat.  From  Mrs. 
Light  he  received  a  gracious  salute,  tempered  by  her  native 
majesty  ;  but  the  young  girl,  looking  straight  before  her, 
seemed  profoundly  indifferent  to  observers.  Her  extra- 
ordinary beauty  however  had  already  made  observers 
numerous,  and  given  the  habitues  of  the  Pincian  plenty 
to  talk  about.  The  echoes  of  their  commentary  reached 
Rowland's  ears  ;  but  he  had  little  taste  for  unsifted  rumour, 
and  he  desired  a  veracious  informant.  He  found  one  in 
the  person  of  Madame  Grandoni,  for  whom  Mrs.  Light  and 
her  beautiful  daughter  were  a  pair  of  old  friends. 

''I  have  known  the  mamma  for  twenty  years,"  said  this 
judicious  critic,  "and  if  you  ask  any  of  the  people  who 
have  been  living  here  as  long  as  I,  you  will  find  they 
remember  her  well.  I  have  held  the  beautiful  Christina 
on  my  knee  when  she  was  a  little  wizened  baby  with  a 
very  red  face  and  no  promise  of  beauty  but  those  magni- 
ficent eyes.  Ten  years  ago  Mrs.  Light  disappeared,  and 
has  not  since  been  seen  in  Rome,  except  for  a  few  days 
last  winter,  when  she  passed  through  on  her  way  to  iSTaples. 
Then  it  was  you  met  the  trio  in  the  Ludovisi  gardens. 
■  When  I  first  knew  her  she  was  the  unmarried  but  very 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  109 

marriageable  dangliter  of  an  old  American  painter  of  vei-v 
bad  landscapes,  which  people  used  to  buy  from  charity  and 
use  for  lire-boards.  His  name  was  Savage ;  it  used  to 
make  every  one  laugh,  he  was  such  a  mild,  melancholy, 
pitiful  old  gentleman.  He  had  married  a  horrible  wife,  an 
Englishwoman  who  had  been  on  the  stage.  It  was  said 
she  used  to  beat  poor  Savage  with  his  mahl-stick,  and, 
when  the  domestic  finances  were  low,  to  lock  him  up  in 
his  studio  and  tell  him  he  shouldn't  come  out  until  he 
had  painted  half  a  dozen  of  his  daubs.  She  had  a  good 
deal  of  showy  beauty.  She  would  go  forth  with  tlu^ 
key  in  her  pocket,  and,  her  beauty  helping,  she  would 
make  certain  people  take  the  pictures.  It  helped  her 
at  last  to  make  an  English  lord  run  away  with  her. 
At  the  time  I  speak  of  she  had  ciuite  disappeared.  Mrs. 
Light  was  then  a  very  handsome  girl,  though  by  no  means 
so  handsome  as  her  daughter  has  now  become.  Mr.  Light 
was  an  American  consul,  newly  appointed  at  one  of  the 
Adriatic  ports.  He  was  a  mild,  fair- whiskered  young  man, 
with  some  little  property,  and  my  impression  is  that  he 
had  got  into  bad  company  at  home,  and  that  his  family 
procured  him  his  place  to  keep  him  out  of  harm's  way. 
He  came  up  to  Eome  on  a  holiday,  fell  in  love  with  Miss 
Savage  and  married  her  on  the  spot.  He  had  not  been 
married  three  years  when  he  was  drowned  in  the  Adriatic, 
no  one  ever  knew  how.  The  young  widow  came  back  to 
Rome,  to  her  father,  and  here  shortly  afterwards,  in  the 
shadow  of  Splint  Peter's,  her  little  girl  v/as  born.  It  might 
have  been  supposed  that  Mrs.  Light  would  marry  again, 
and  I  know  she  had  opportunities.  But  she  overreached 
herself.  She  would  take  nothing  less  than  a  title  and  a 
fortune,  and  they  were  not  forthcoming.  She  was  admired 
and  very  fond  of  admiration  ;  very  vain,  very  worldly,  very 
silly.  She  remained  a  pretty  widow  with  a  surprising 
variety  of  bonnets  and  a  dozen  men  always  in  her  train. 
Giacosa  dates  from  this  period.  He  calls  himself  a  Roman, 
but  I  have  an  impression  he  came  up  from  Ancona  with 
her.  He  was  Vami  de  la  maison.  He  used  to  hold  her 
bouquets,  clean  her  gloves  and  satin  shoes,  run  her  errands, 
get  her  opera-boxes,  fight  her  battles  with  the  shopkeepers. 
For  this  he  needed  courage,  for  she  was  smothered  in  debt. 
She  at  last  left  Rome  to  escape  her  creditors.     Many  of 


no  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

them  must  remember  her  still,  but  she  seems  now  to  have 
money  to  satisfy  them.  She  left  her  poor  old  father  here 
alone — helpless,  infirm,  and  unable  to  work.  A  subscription 
was  shortly  afterwards  taken  up  among  the  foreigners,  and 
he  was  sent  back  to  America,  where,  as  I  finally  heard,  he 
died  in  some  sort  of  asylum.  From  time  to  time,  for  several 
years,  I  heard  vaguely  of  Mrs.  Light  as  a  wandering  beauty 
at  French  and  German  watering-places.  Once  came  a  rumour 
that  she  was  going  to  make  a  grand  marriage  in  England  : 
then  we  heard  that  the  gentleman  had  thought  better  of 
it  and  left  her  to  keep  afloat  as  she  could.  She  was  a 
terribly  scatter-brained  creature.  She  pretends  to  be  a 
great  lady,  but  I  consider  that  old  Filomena,  my  washer- 
woman, is  in  essentials  a  greater  one.  But  certainly  after 
all  she  has  been  fortunate.  She  embarked  at  last  on  a 
lawsuit  about  some  property,  with  her  husband's  family, 
and  went  to  America  to  attend  to  it.  She  came  back 
triumphant,  with  a  long  purse.  She  reappeared  in  Italy 
and  established  herself  for  a  while  in  Venice.  Then  she 
came  to  Florence,  where  she  spent  a  couple  of  years  and 
where  I  saw  her.  Last  year  she  passed  down  to  Naples, 
w^hich  I  should  have  said  was  just  the  place  for  her,  and 
this  winter  she  had  laid  siege  to  Rome.     She  seems  very 

prosperous.     She  has  taken  a  floor  in  the  Palazzo  F , 

she  keeps  her  carriage,  and  Christina  and  she,  between 
them,  must  have  a  pretty  milliner's  bill.  Giacosa  has 
turned  up  again,  looking  as  if  he  had  been  kept  in  ice  at 
Ancona  for  her  return." 

*'  What  sort  of  education,"  Rowland  asked,  "  do  you 
imagine  the  mother's  adventures  to  have  been  for  the 
daughter  ?  " 

"  A  strange  school  !  But  Mrs.  Light  told  me  in  Florence 
that  she  had  given  her  child  the  education  of  a  princess. 
In  other  words  I  suppose  she  speaks  three  or  four  languages 
and  has  read  several  hundred  French  novels.  Christina  I 
suspect  is  very  clever.  When  I  saw  her  I  was  amazed  at 
her  beauty,  and  certainly  if  there  is  any  truth  in  faces  she 
ought  to  have  the  soul  of  an  angel.  Perhaps  she  has.  I  don't 
judge  her ;  she's  an  extraordinary  young  person.  She  has 
been  told  twenty  times  a  day  by  her  mother,  since  she  was 
five  years  old,  that  she  is  a  beauty  of  beauties,  that  her 
face  is  her  fortune,  and  that  if   she  plays  her  cards  she 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  Ill 

may  marry  a  duke.  If  she  has  not  been  fatally  corrupted 
she  is  a  very  superior  girl.  My  own  impression  is  that 
she  is  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad,  of  ambition  and  in- 
difference. Mrs.  Light  having  failed  to  make  her  own 
fortune  in  matrimony  has  transferred  her  hopes  to  her 
daughter  and  nursed  them  till  they  have  become  a  mono- 
mania. She  has  a  hobby,  which  she  rides  in  secret ;  but 
some  day  she  will  let  you  see  it.  I  am  sure  that  if  you  go 
in  some  evening  unannounced,  you  will  find  her  scanning 
the  tea-leaves  in  her  cup  or  telling  her  daughter's  fortune 
with  a  greasy  pack  of  cards,  kept  sacredly  for  the  purpose. 
She  promises  her  a  prince — a  reigning  prince.  But  if 
Mrs.  Light  is  a  fool  she  is  a  practical  one,  and  lest  con- 
siderations of  state  should  deny  her  prince  the  luxury  of 
a  love-match  she  keeps  on  hand  a  few  common  mortals. 
At  the  worst  she  would  take  a  duke,  an  English  lord,  or 
even  a  young  American  with  a  proper  number  of  millions. 
The  poor  woman  must  be  rather  uncomfortable.  She  is 
always  building  castles  and  knocking  them  down  again 
—always  casting  her  nets  and  pulling  them  in.  If  her 
daughter  were  less  of  a  beauty  her  restless  ambition  would 
be  simply  grotesque  ;  but  there  is  something  in  the  girl, 
as  one  looks  at  her,  that  seems  to  make  it  very  possible 
she  is  marked  out  for  one  of  those  wonderful  romantic 
fortunes  that  history  now  and  then  relates.  '  Who,  rJter  all, 
was  the  Empress  of  the  French  1 '  Mrs.  Light  is  for  ever 
saying.  '  And  beside  Christina  the  Empress  is  a  dowdy !  '  " 

"  And  what  does  Christina  say  1  " 

"  She  makes  no  scruple,  as  you  know,  of  saying  that  her 
mother  is  an  idiot  !  What  she  thinks  Heaven  knows.  I 
suspect  that  practically  she  does  not  commit  herself.  She 
is  excessively  proud  and  thinks  herself  good  enough  to 
occupy  the  highest  station  in  the  world ;  but  she  knows 
that  her  mother  talks  nonsense  and  that  even  a  beautiful 
girl  may  look  awkward  in  making  unsuccessful  advances. 
So  she  remains  superbly  indifferent  and  lets  her  mother 
take  the  risks.  If  the  Prince  is  secured,  so  m^ch  the 
better  ;  if  he  is  not  she  need  never  confess  to  herself  that 
even  a  prince  has  slighted  her." 

"  Your  report  is  as  solid,"  Rowland  said  to  Mad.ame 
Grandoni,  thanking  her,  "as  if  it  had  been  drawn  up  for 
the  Academy  of  Sciences ; "  and  he  congratulated  himself 


112  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

oil  havin,f(  listened  to  it  when  a  couple  of  days  later  Mrs. 
Light  and  lier  daughter,  attended  Ijy  the  Cavaliere  and  the 
poodle,  came  to  his  rooms  to  look  at  Koderick's  statues. 
It  was  more  comfortable  to  know  just  with  whom  he  was 
dealing. 

Mrs.  Light  was  prodigiously  gracious,  and  showered 
down  compliments  not  only  on  the  statues  but  on  all  his 
possessions.  '*  Upon  my  word,"  she  said,  "  you  rich  young 
men  know  how  to  make  yourselves  comfortable.  If  one 
of  us  poor  women  had  half  as  many  easy-chairs  and  knick- 
knacks  we  should  be  famously  abused.  It's  really  selfish 
to  be  living  all  alone  in  such  a  place  as  this.  Cavaliere, 
how  should  you  like  this  suite  of  rooms  and  a  fortune  to 
fill  them  with  pictures  and  statues  ?  (Christina  love,  look  at 
that  mosaic  table.  Mr.  Mallet,  I  could  almost  beg  it  from 
you  !  Yes,  that  Eve  is  certainly  very  line.  "We  needn't  be 
ashamed  of  such  a  great-grandmother  as  that.  If  she  was 
really  such  a  beautiful  woman,  it  accounts  for  the  good  looks 
of  some  of  us.  Where  is  Mr.  What's-his-name,  the  young 
sculptor  1     Why  isn't  he  here  to  be  complimented  1  " 

Christina  had  remained  but  for  a  moment  in  the  chair 
which  Rowland  placed  for  her,  had  given  but  a  cursory 
glance  at  the  statues,  and  then,  leaving  her  seat,  had 
begun  to  wander  round  the  room — looking  at  herself  in 
the  mirror,  touching  the  ornaments  and  curiosities,  glancing 
at  the  books  and  prints.  Rowland's  sitting-room  was  en- 
cumbered with  bric-a-brac  and  she  found  plenty  of 
occupation.  Rowland  presently  joined  her  and  pointed 
out  some  of  the  objects  he  most  valued. 

"It's  an  odd  jumble,"  she  said  frankly.  "Some  things 
are  very  pretty — some  are  very  ugly.  But  I  like  ugly 
things  whv3n  they  have  a  certain  look.  Prettiness  is 
terribly  vulgar  nowadays,  and  it  is  not  every  one  that  knows 
just  the  sort  of  ugliness  that  has  chic?  But  chic  is  getting 
dreadfully  common  too.  There's  a^  hint  of  it  e^'en  in 
Madame  Baldi's  bonnets.  I  like  looking  at  people's 
things,"  she  added  in  a  moment,  turning  to  Rowland  and 
resting  her  eyes  on  him.  "  It  helps  you  to  find  out  their 
cliaracters," 

"  Am  I  to  suppose,"  asked  Rowland  smiling,  "  that  you 
have  arrived  at  any  conclusions  as  to  mine  1  " 

"  I  am  rather  intriguee  ;  you  have  too  many  things  ;  one 


RODERICK  HUDSON^.  113 

seems  to  contradict  another.  You  are  very  artistic  and 
yet  you  are  very  prosaic ;  you  have  what  is  called  a 
*  catholic '  taste,  and  yet  you  are  full  of  obstinate  little 
prejudices  and  preferences  which,  if  I  knew  you,  I  should 
tind  very  tiresome.     I  don't  think  I  like  you." 

"  You  make  a  great  mistake,"  laughed  Rowland ;  "  I 
assure  you  I  am  very  amiable." 

"  Yes,  I  am  probably  wrong,  and  if  I  knew  you,  I  should 
find  out  I  was  wrong,  and  that  would  irritate  me  and  make 
me  dislike  you  more.  So  you  see  we  are  necessarily 
enemies." 

"  No,  I  don't  dislike  you  !  " 

"  Worse  and  worse  ;  for  you  certainly  will  not  like  me."' 

"  You  are  very  discouraging." 

"  I  am  fond  of  facing  the  truth,  though  some  day  you 
will  deny  even  that.  Where  is  that  queer  friend  of 
yours  'i  " 

"  You  mean  Roderick  Hudson  1  He  is  represented  by 
these  beautiful  works." 

Miss  Light  looked  for  some  moments  at  Roderick's 
statues.  "  Yes,"  she  said,  "  they  are  not  so  silly  as  most 
of  the  things  we  have  seen.  They  have  no  chic,  and  yet 
they  are  beautiful." 

"  You  describe  them  perfectly,"  said  Rowland.  "  They 
are  beautiful,  and  yet  they  have  no  chic.     That's  it  !  " 

"  If  he  will  promise  to  put  no  chic  into  my  bust,  I  have 
a  mind  to  let  him  make  it.  A  rec^uest  made  in  those 
terms  deserves  to  be  granted." 

"  In  what  terms  1  " 

"  Didn't  you  hear  him  1  '  Mademoiselle,  you  almost 
satisfy  my  conception  of  the  beautiful.  I  must  model 
your  bust.'  That  almost  should  be  rewarded !  He  is 
like  me,  he  likes  to  face  the  truth.  I  think  we  should 
get  on  together." 

The  Cavaliere  approached  Rowland  to  express  the  pleasure 
he  had  derived  from  his  beautiful  "collection."  His  smile 
was  exquisitely  bland,  his  accent  appealing,  flattering,  in- 
sinuating. But  he  gave  Rowland  an  odd  sense  of  looking 
at  a  little  waxen  image  adjusted  to  perform  certain  gestures 
and  emit  certain  sounds.  It  had  once  contained  a  soul,  but 
the  soul  had  leaked  away.  Nevertheless,  Rowland  reflected, 
there  are  more   graceless    things   than   mere   manner  and 

H 


114  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

po&tiire,  in  an  old-fasliionod  lt;iliiiu.  And  the  Cavaliere  too 
bad  soul  enough  left  to  desire  to  speak  a  few  words  on  his 
own  account,  and  call  Rowland's  attention  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  not  after  all  a  hired  cicerone,  but  an  ancient  Koman 
gentleman.  Kowland  felt  sorry  for  him  ;  he  hardly  knew 
why.  He  assured  him  in  a  friendly  fashion  that  he  must 
come  again  ;  that  his  house  was  always  at  his  service.  The 
Cavaliere  bowed  down  to  the  ground.  "  You  do  me  too 
much  honour,"  he  murmured.  "  If  you  will  allow  me  — it 
is  not  impossible  !  " 

Mrs.  Light  meanwhile  had  prepared  to  depart.  "  If  you 
are  not  afraid  to  come  and  see  two  c|uiet  little  women, 
we  shall  be  most  happy  1  "  she  said.  "  We  have  no  statues 
nor  pictures  —  we  have  nothing  but  each  other.  Eh, 
darling  1  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Christina. 

"  Oh,  and  the  Cavaliere,"  added  her  mother. 

"  The  jwodle  please  !  "  cried  the  young  girl. 

Rowland  glanced  at  the  Cavaliere ;  he  was  smiling  more 
blandly  than  ever, 

A  few  days  later  Rowland  presented  himself,  as  civility 
demanded,  at  Mrs.  Light's  door.  He  found  her  living  in 
one  of  the  stately  houses  of  the  Via  dell'  Angelo  Custode, 
and  rather  to  his  surprise  was  told  she  was  at  home.  He 
passed  through  half  a  dozen  rooms  and  was  ushered  into  an 
immense  saloon,  at  one  end  of  v/hich  sat  the  mistress  of 
the  establishment  with  a  piece  of  embroidery.  She  re- 
ceived him  very  graciously,  and  then  pointing  mysteriously 
to  a  large  screen  which  was  unfolded  across  the  embrasure 
of  one  of  the  deep  windows,  "  I  am  keeping  guard  !  " 
she  said.  Rowland  looked  interrogative  ;  whereupon  she 
beckoned  him  forward  and  motioned  him  to  look  behind 
the  screen.  He  obeyed,  and  for  some  moments  stood 
gazing.  Roderick,  with  his  back  turned,  stood  before  an 
extemporised  pedestal,  ardently  shaj^ing  a  formless  mass 
of  clay.  Before  him  sat  Christina  Light,  in  a  white  dress, 
with  her  shoulders  bare,  her  magnificent  hair  twisted  into 
a  classic  coil,  her  head  admirably  poised.  Meeting  Row- 
land's gaze  she  smiled  a  little,  only  in  the  depths  of  her 
lilue-grey  eyes,  without  moving.  She  looked  divinely 
beautiful. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  115 


IX. 


The  brilliant  Eoman  winter  came  round  again,  and 
Rowland  enjoyed  it  in  a  certain  way  more  deeply  than 
before.  He  grew  passionately,  nnreasoningly  fond  of  all 
Roman  sights  and  sensations,  and  to  breathe  the  Roman 
atmosphere  seemed  a  needful  condition  of  being.  He 
could  not  have  defined  and  explained  the  nature  of  hii^ 
great  relish,  nor  have  made  up  the  sum  of  it  by  adding 
together  his  calculable  pleasures.  It  was  a  large,  vague, 
idle,  half  profitless  emotion,  of  which  perhaps  the  most 
pertinent  thing  that  may  be  said  is  that  it  brought  with 
it  a  sort  of  relaxed  acceptance  of  the  present,  the  actual, 
the  sensuous— of^ life  on  the  terms  of  the  moment.  It 
was  perhaps  for  this  very  reason  that  in  spite  of  the  charm 
which  Rome  flings  over  one's  mood  there  ran  through/ 
Rowland's  meditations  an  undertone  of  melancholy  natural 
enough  in  a  mind  which  finds  its  horizon  sensibly  limited 
— even  by  a  magic  circle.  Whether  it  be  that  one  tacitly 
concedes  to  the  Roman  Church  the  monolopy  of  a  guarantee 
of  immortality,  so  that  if  one  is  indisposed  to  bargain  with 
her  for  the  pi-ecious  gift  one  must  do  without  it  altogether  ; 
or  whether  in  an  atmosphere  so  heavily  weighted  with 
echoes  and  memories  one  grows  to  believe  that  there  is 
nothing  in  one's  consciousness  that  is  not  foredoomed  to 
moulder  and  crumble  and  become  dust  for  the  feet  and 
possible  malaria  for  the  lungs,  of  future  generations— th§ 
fact  at  least  remains  that  one  parts  half  willingly  with 
one's  hopes  in  Rome  and  misses  them  only  under  some 
very  exceptional  stress  of  circumstance.  For  this  reason 
it  may  perhaps  be  said  that  there  is  no  other  place  in 
which  one's  daily  temper  has  such  a  mellow  serenity,  and 
none  at  the  same  time  in  which  acute  attacks  of  depression 
are  more  intolerable.  Rowland  found,  in  fact,  a  perfect 
response  to  his  prevision  that  to  Jive  in  Rome  was  an 
education  to  the  senses  and  the  imagination ;  but  he  some- 
times wondered  whether  this  were  not  a  questionable  gain 
in  case  of  one's  not  being  prepared  to  subside  into  soft 
dilettantism.     His  customary  tolerance   of   circumstances 

H    A 


116  RODE  KICK  HUDSON. 

seemed  sometimes  to  pivot  about  by  a  mysterious  inward 
impulse  and  look  his  con>cience  in  the  face.  "  But  after- 
waids  ....  r'  it  seemed  to  ask,  with  a  long  reverbera- 
tion ;  and  he  could  give  no  answer  but  a  shy  affirmation 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  to-morrow  and  that  to-d:i} 
was  uncommonly  tine.  He  often  felt  heavy-hearted  ;  he 
was  sombre  without  knowing  why  ;  there  were  no  visible 
clouds  in  his  heaven,  but  there  were  cloud-shadows  on  his 
mood.  Shadows  projected  they  often  were,  without  his 
knowing  it,  by  an  undue  apprehension  that  things  after 
all  might  not  go  so  ideally  well  with  Roderick.  When  he 
caught  himself  fidgeting  it  vexed  him,  and  he  rebuked 
himself  for  taking  things  unmanfully  hard.  If  Boderick 
chofee  to  follow  a  crooked  path,  it  was  no  fault  of  his  ; 
he  had  given  him,  he  would  continue  to  give  him,  all  that 
he  had  oU'ered  him— friendship,  sympathy,  advice.  He 
had  not  undertaken  to  make  him  over ! 

If  Pvowland  felt  his  roots  striking  and  spreiiding  in  the 
Roman  soil,  Roderick  also  surrendered  himself  with  re- 
newed liberality  to  the  local  influence.  More  than  once 
he  declared  to  his  companion  that  he  meant  to  live  and 
die  within  the  shadow  of  St.  Feter's,  and  that  he  cared 
little  if  he  should  never  again  draw  breath  in  American 
air.  "  For  a  man  of  my  temperament  Rome  is  the  only 
possible  place,"  he  said  ;  "  it's  better  to  recognise  the  fact 
early  than  late.  So  I  shall  never  go  home  unless  I  am 
absolutely  forced." 

"What  is  your  idea  of  'force"?"  asked  Rowland, 
smiling.  "  It  seems  to  me  you  have  an  excellent  reason 
for  going  home  s-ome  day  or  other/' 

''  Ah,  you  mean  my  engagement  1 ''  Roderick  answered 
with  unaverted  eyes.  "  Yes,  there  is  a  little  understandii  g 
of  that  sort  at  Northampton  ! "  And  he  gave  a  littie 
vaguely  appreciative  sigh.  "To  reconcile  Northampton 
and  Rome  is  rather  a  problem.  Mary  had  better  come 
out  here.  Even  at  the  worst  I  have  no  intention  of 
giving  up  Rome  for  six  or  eight  years,  and  a  union 
deferred  for  that  length  of  time  would  be  ratlier  absurd." 

"  Miss  Garland  could  hardly  leave  your  mother," 
Rowland  observed. 

"  Oh,  of  course  my  mother  should  come  !  I  think  I  will 
suggest  it  in  my  next  letter.     It  will  lake  her  a  year  cr 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  117 

two  to  make  up  her  mind  to  it,  but  if  she  consents  it  will 
brighten  her  up.  It's  too  small  and  dry  a  life  over  there, 
even  for  a  timid  old  lady.  It  is  hard  to  imagine,"  he 
added,  "  any  change  in  Mary  being  a  change  for  the 
better ;  but  I  should  like  her  to  take  a  look  at  the  world 
and  have  her  ideas  enlarged  a  little.  One  is  never  so  good, 
I  suppose,  but  that  one  can  improve." 

"  If  you  wish  your  mother  and  Miss  Garland  to  come," 
Rowland  suggested,  "  you  had  better  go  home  and  bring 
them." 

"  Oh,  I  can't  think  of  leaving  Europe  for  many  a  day. 
At  present  it  would  quite  break  the  charm.  I  am  just 
beginning  tc  profit,  to  get  used  to  things  and  take  them 
naturally.  1  am  sure  the  sight  of  Northampton  Main 
Street  would  permanently  upset  me." 

It  was  reassuring  to  hear  that  Roderick  in  his  own 
view  was  but  "just  beginning"  to  spread  his  wings,  and 
Rowland,  if  he  had  had  any  foreDodings,  might  have 
suffered  them  to  be  modified  by  this  declaration.  This 
was  the  first  time  since  their  meeting  at  Geneva  that 
Roderick  had  mentioned  his  cousin's  name,  but  the  ice 
being  broken  he  indulged  for  some  time  afterwards  in 
frequent  allusions  to  his  betrothed,  which  always  had  an 
accent  of  scrupulous,  of  almost  studied,  consideration.  An 
uninitiated  observer,  hearing  him,  would  have  imagined 
her  to  be  a  person  of  a  certain  age — possibly  an  aifectionate 
maiden  aunt — who  had  once  done  him  a  kindness  which  he 
highly  appreciated ;  perhaps  presented  him  with  a  cheque 
for  a  thousand  dollars.  Rowland  noted  the  difference 
between  his  present  frankness  and  his  reticence  during  the 
first  six  months  of  his  engagement,  and  sometimes  wondered 
whether  it  were  not  rather  an  anomaly  that  he  should  ex- 
patiate more  largely  as  the  happy  event  receded.  He  had 
wondered  over  the  whole  matter  first  and  last  in  a  great 
many  different  ways — he  had  looked  at  it  in  all  possible 
lights.  There  was  something  uncommonly  hard  to  explain 
in  the  fact  of  his  having  fallen  in  love  with  his  cousin. 
She  was  not,  as  Rowland  conceived  her,  the  sort  of  girl  he 
would  have  been  likely  to  fancy,  and  the  operation  of  senti- 
ment, in  all  cases  so  mysterious,  was  particularly  so  in  this 
one.  Just  why  it  was  that  Roderick  should  not  in  con- 
sistency have  been  captivated,  his  companion   would  have 


118  ROD K KICK  HUDSON. 

beeu  at  a  loss  to  say  ;  but  I  think  the  conviction  had  its 
roots  in  an  unformulated  comparison  between  himself  and 
the  accepted  suitor.      Roderick  and   he  were  as  different  as 
two  men  could  be,  and  yet  Roderick  had  taken  it  into  his 
head  to  fall  in  love  with  a  woman  for  whom  he  himself 
had   been   keeping  in  reserve   for  years  a  deeply  charac- 
teristic passion.     That  if  Rowland  Mallet  happened  to  be 
/very  much  struck  with  the  merits  of  Roderick's  mistress, 
X  the  irregularity  here  was  hardly  Roderick's,  was  a  view  of 
the  c:!.se  to   which  oar  virtuous  hero   did  scanty  justice. 
There  were  women,  he  said  to  himself,  whom  it  was  every 
one's  business  to  fall  in  love  with  a  little — women  beautiful, 
brilliant,    artful,   easily   fascinating.      JVliss   Light,    for   in- 
stance, was  one   of  these  ;  every  man  who   spoke  to  her 
did  so,  if  not  in  the  language,  at  least  with  something  of 
the  agitation,  the  divine  tremor,  of  a  lover.     There  were 
other  women^ — they  might  have  great  beauty,  they  might 
have  small  ;  perhaps  they  were  generally  to  be  classified  as 
plain — whose  triumphs  in  this  line  were  rare,  but  immutably 
permanent.     Such  a  one,  conspicuously,  was  Mary  Garland. 
Upon  the  doctrine  of  probabilities  it  was  unlikely  that  she 
should  have  had  an  equal  charm  for  each  of  them,  and  was 
it  not  possible  therefore  that  the  charm  for  Roderick  had 
been  simply  the  charm  imagined,  unquestionably  accepted, 
the  general  charm  of  youth,  sympathy,  kindness — of  the 
present  feminine,  in  short — enhanced  indeed   by  the  ad- 
vantage   of    an    expressive    countenance]      The  charm   in 
this  case  for  Rowland  was — the  charm! — the  mysterious, 
individual,  essential  woman.     There  was    an    element    in 
the  charm,  as  his  companion   saw  it,  which  Rowland  was 
obliged  to  recognise,  but  which  he  forbore  to  linger  upon  ; 
the    rather    important   attraction,   namely,   of    reciprocity. 
As   to    the    girl    being  in   love  with   Roderick  and    com- 
mending her.'- elf  by  this  accident,  this  was  a  point  with 
v.^hich    his    imagination    ventured    to    take    no    liberties ; 
partly  because  it  would  have  been  indelicate,  and  partly 
^    because  it  would  have  been  vain.     He  contented  himself 
with  feeling  that  she  was  still  as  vivid  an  image  in  his 
own  memory  as  she  had  been  five  days  after  he  left  her, 
^and  with  drifting  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  conviction  that 
at   just   that   crisis  any  other   girl  would   have   answered 
Roderick's  sentimental  needs  as  well.     Any  other  woman, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  119 

indeed,  would  do  so  still !  Roderick  had  confessed  as 
much  to  him  at  Geneva  in  saying  that  he  had  been 
taking  at  Baden  the  measure  of  his  susceptibility. 

His  extraordinary  success  in  modelling  the  bust  of  the 
beautiful  Miss  Light  was  pertinent  evidence  of  this  amiable 
quality.  She  sat  to  him  repeatedly  for  a  fortnight,  and 
the  work  was  rapidly  finished.  On  one  of  the  last  days 
Roderick  asked  Rowland  to  come  and  give  his  opinion  as 
to  what  was  still  wanting  ;  for  the  sittings  had  continued 
to  take  place  in  Mrs.  Light's  apartment,  the  studio  being 
pronounced  too  damp  for  the  fair  model.  When  Rowland 
presented  himself,  Christina,  still  in  her  white  dress,  with 
her  shoulders  bare,  was  standing  before  a  mirror  readjusting 
her  hair,  the  arrangement  of  which  on  this  occasion  had 
apparently  not  met  the  young  sculptor's  approval.  He  stood 
beside  her,  directing  the  operation  with  a  peremptoriness 
of  tone  which  seemed  to  Rowland  to  denote  a  considerable 
advance  in  intimacy.  As  Rowland  entered,  Christina  was 
losTng  patience,  "  Do  it  yourself  then !  "  she  cried,  and 
with  a  rapid  movement  unloosed  the  great  coil  of  her 
tresses  and  let  them  fall  over  her  shoulders. 

They  were  magnitiGent,  and  with  her  perfect  face  dividing 
their  rippling  flow  she  looked  like  some  immaculate  saint 
of  legend  being  led  to  martyrdom.  Rowland's  eyes  pre- 
sumably betrayed  his  admiration,  but  her  own  manifested 
no  consciousness  of  it.  If  Christina  was  a  coquette,  as  the 
remarkable  timeliness  of  this  incident  might  have  suggested, 
she  was  not  a  superficial  one, 

"Hudson's  a  sculptor,"  said  Rowland,  with  warmth. 
"  But  if  I  were  only  a  painter  !  " 

"  Thank  Heaven  you  are  not  !  "  said  Christina.  "  I  am 
having  quite  enough  of  this  minute  inspection  of  my 
charms." 

"  My  dear  young  man,  hands  off  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Light, 
coming  forward  and  seizing  her  daughter's  hair.  "  Christina, 
love,  I  am  surprised." 

"  Is  it  indelicate  ]  "  Christina  asked.  "  I  beg  Mr.  Mallet's 
pardon."  Mrs.  Light  gathered  up  the  dusky  locks  and 
let  them  fall  through  her  fingers,  glancing  at  her  visitor 
with  a  significant  smile.  Rowland  had  never  been  in  the 
East,  but  if  he  had  attempted  to  make  a  sketch  of^^an  old 
slave-merchant  calling    attention   to    the    '"points"    ot    a 


120  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

Circassian  beauty,  he  would  have  depicted  such  a  smile 
as  Mrs.  Light's.  "  Mamma  is  not  really  shocked,"  added 
Christina  in  a  moment,  as  if  she  had  guessed  her  mother's 
by- play.  "She  is  only  afraid  that  Mr.  Hudson  might 
have  injured  my  hair,  and  that  jjer  consequenza,  I  should 
sell  for  less." 

"  You  unnatural  child  !  "  cried  mamma.  "  You  deserve 
that  I  should  make  a  fright  of  you  !  "  And  with  half  a 
dozen  skilful  passes  she  twisted  the  tresses  into  a  single 
pictaresijue  braid,  placed  high  on  the  head,  as  a  kind  of 
coronal. 

"  What  does  your  mother  do  when  she  wants  to  do  you 
justice 'i"  Kowland  asked,  observing  the  admirable  line 
of  the  young  girl's  neck. 

"  I  do  her  justice  when  I  say  she  says  very  improper 
things.  What  is  one  to  do  with  such  a  thorn  in  the 
tiesh  %  "  Mrs.  Light  demanded. 

"  Tlhink  of  it  at  your  leisure,  Mr.  Mallet,"  said  Christina, 
"  and  when  you  have  discovered  something  let  us  hear. 
But  I'  must  tell  you  that  I  shall  not  willingly  believe  in 
any  remedy  of  yours,  for  you  have  something  in  the 
expression  of  your  face  that  particularly  provokes  me  to 
make  the  remarks  that  my  mother  so  sincerely  deplores. 
\^I  noticed  it  the  first  time  I  saw  you.  I  think  it's  l;ecause 
your  face  is  so  broad.  For  some  reason  or  other  broad 
faces  exasperate  me ;  they  iill  me  with  a  kind  of  rahbia. 
Last  summer  at  Carlsbad  there  was  an  Austrian  count, 
with  enormous  estates  and  some  great  office  at  court.  He 
was  very  attentive — seriously  so  ;  he  was  really  very  fiir 
gone.  Cela  ne  tenait  qua  moi  !  But  I  couldn't ;  he  was 
impossible  !  He  must  have  measured  from  ear  to  ear  at 
least  a  yard  and  a  half.  And  he  was  blond  too,  which 
made  it  worse — as  blond  as  Stenterello ;  pure  fleece  !  So 
I  said  to  him  frankly,  '  Many  thanks,  Herr  Graf ;  your 
uniform  is  magniticent  but  your  face  is  too  fat.'  " 

"I  am  afraid  that  mine  also,''  said  Rowland  with  a 
smile,  "  seems  just  now  to  have  assumed  an  unpardonable 
latitude." 

"  Oh,  I  take  it  you  know  very  well  that  we  are  looking 
for  a  husband  and  that  none  but  tremendous  swells  need 
apply.  Surely  before  these  gentlemen,  mamma,  I  may 
speak  freely;  they  are  disinterested.     Mr.    Mallet  won't 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  121 

do,  because,  though  he  is  rich,  he  is  not  rich  enough. 
Mamma  made  that  discovery  the  day  after  we  went  to  see 
you,  moved  to  it  by  the  promising  look  of  your  furniture. 
I  hope  she  was  right,  eh  't  Unless  you  have  millions,  you 
know,  you  have  no  chance." 

"  I  feel  like  a  beggar,"  said  Rowland. 

"  Oh,  some  better  girl  than  I  will  decide  some  day,  after 
mature  rejection,  that  on  the  whole  you  have  enough. 
Mr.  Hudson,  of  course,  is  nowhere  ;  he  has  nothing  but 
his  genius  and  his  beaux  yeux." 

Eoderick  had  stood  looking  at  Christina  intently  while 
she  delivered  herself,  softly  and  slowly,  of  this  surprising 
nonsense.  When  she  had  finished,  she  turned  and  looked 
at  him  ;  their  eyes  met  and  he  blushed  a  little.  "  Let 
me  model  you,  and  he  who  can  may  marry  you  ! "  he  said, 
abruptly. 

Mrs.  Light,  while  her  daughter  talked,  had  been  adding 
a  few  touches  to  her  coitt'ure.  "  She  is  not  so  silly  as  you 
might  suppose,"  she  said  to  Rowland  with  dignity.  "If 
you  will  give  me  your  arm  we  will  go  and  look  at  the 
bust." 

"  Does  that  represent  a  silly  girl  1  "  Christina  demanded 
when  they  stood  before  it. 

Rowland  transferred  his  glance  several  times  from  the 
portrait  to  the  original.  "It  represents  a  young  lady 
whom  I  should  not  pretend  to  judge  off-hand." 

"  She  may  be  a  fool,  but  you  are  not  sure.  Many  thanks  ! 
You  have  seen  me  half  a  dozen  times.  You  are  either 
very  slow  or  I  am  very  deep." 

"  I  am  certainly  slow,"  said  Rowland.  "I  don't  expect 
to  make  up  my  mind  about  you  within  six  months." 

"  I  give  you  six  months  if  you  will  promise  then  a 
perfectly  frank  opinion.  Mind,  I  shall  not  forget ;  I  shall 
insist  upon  it." 

"  Well,  though  I  am  slow  I  am  tolerably  brave,"  said 
Rowland.     "  We  shall  see." 

Christina  looked  at  the  bust  with  a  sigh.  "  I  am  afraid 
after  all,"  she  said,  "  that  there's  very  little  wisdom  in  it 
save  what  the  artist  has  put  there.  Mr.  Hudson  looked 
particularly  wise  while  he  was  working  ;  he  scowled  Jind 
growled,  but  he  never  opened  his  mouth.  It  is  very  kind 
of  him  not  to  have  represented  me  yawning." 


122  RODEIUCK  HUDSON. 

"  If  I  had  folt  obliged  to  talk  a  lot  of  rubbish  to  you," 
said  Koderick  roundly,  "  the  thing  would  not  have  been  a 
tenth  so  good." 

"  Is  it  good  after  all  1  Mr.  Mallet  is  a  famous  connois- 
.seur ;  has  he  not  come  here  to  pronounce  1 " 

The  bust  was  in  fact  a  very  happy  performance — 
Roderick  had  risen  to  the  level  of  his  subject.  It  was 
thoroughly  a  portrait,  and  not  a  vague  fantasy  executed 
on  a  graceful  theme,  as  the  busts  of  pretty  women  in 
modern  sculpture  are  apt  to  be.  The  resemblance  was 
deep  and  vivid  ;  there  was  extreme  fidelity  of  detail,  and 
yet  a  noble  simplicity.  One  could  say  of  the  head  that, 
without  idealisation,  it  was  a  representation  of  ideal  beauty. 
Rowland  however,  as  we  know,  was  not  fond  of  exploding 
into  superlatives,  and  after  examining  the  piece  he  con- 
tented himself  with  suggesting  two  or  three  alterations  of 
detail. 

"  Ah,  how  can  you  be  so  cruel  1  "  demanded  Mrs.  Light, 
with  soft  reproachfulness.  "  It  is  surely  a  wonderful 
thing  !  " 

"  Rowland  knows  it's  a  wonderful  thing,"  said  Roderick 
smiling.  "  I  can  tell  that  by  his  face.  The  other  day 
I  finished  something  he  thought  bad,  and  he  looked  very 
differently  from  this." 

"  How  did  Mr.  Mallet  look  1  "  asked  Christina. 

"  My  dear  Rowland,  "  said  Roderick,  "  I  am  speaking 
of  my  seated  woman.  You  looked  as  if  you  had  on  a  pair 
of  tight  boots." 

"  Ah,  my  child,  you'll  not  understand  that  !  "  cried  Mrs. 
Light.  **You  never  yet  had  a  pair  that  were  small 
enough." 

"  It's  a  pity,  Mr.  Hudson,"  said  Christina  gravely,  "  that 
you  could  not  have  introduced  my  feet  into  the  bust.  But 
we  can  hang  a  pair  of  slippers  round  the  neck  !  " 

"  I  nevertheless  like  your  statues,  Roderick,"  Rowland 
rejoined,  "  better  than  your  jokes.  This  is  admirable. 
Miss  Light,  you  may  be  proud  !  " 

*'  Than  you,  Mr.  Mallet,  for  the  permission,"  rejoined 
the  young  girl. 

"  I  am  dying  to  see  it  in  the  marble,  with  a  red  velvet 
screen  behind  it,"  said  Mrs.  Light. 

"  Placed  there  under  the  Sassoferrato  !  "  Christina  went 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  123 

on.  "  I  hope  you  keep  well  in  mind,  Mr.  Hudson,  that 
you  have  not  a  grain  of  property  in  your  work,  and  that  if 
mamma  chooses  she  may  have  it  photographed  and  the 
copies  gold  in  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  at  five  francs  apiece, 
without  your  having  a  sou  of  the  profits." 

"  Amen  !  "  said  Roderick.  "  It  was  so  nominated  in 
the  bond.  My  profits  are  here  ! "  and  he  tapped  his 
forehead. 

"  It  would  be  prettier  if  you  said  here  !  "  And  Christina 
touched  her  heart. 

"  My  precious  child,  how  you  do  run  on  !  "  murmured 
Mrs.  Light. 

"  It  is  Mr.  Mallet,"  the  young  girl  answered.  "  I  can't 
talk  a  word  of  sense  so  long  as  he  is  in  the  room.  I  don't 
say  that  to  make  you  go,"  she  added  ;  "I  say  it  simply  to 
justify  myself." 

*'  The  noble  art  of  self-defence  !  "  said  Rowland. 

Roderick  declared  that  he  must  get  at  work  and  requested 
Christina  to  take  her  usual  position,  and  Mrs.  Light  pro- 
posed oO  her  visitor  that  they  should  adjourn  to  her  boudoir. 
This  was  a  small  room,  hardly  more  spacious  than  an  alcove, 
opening  out  of  the  drawing-room  and  having  no  other  issue. 
Here,  as  they  entered,  on  a  divan  near  the  door,  Rowland 
perceived  the  Cavaliere  Giacosa,  with  his  arms  folded,  his 
head  dropped  upon  his  breast  and  his  eyes  closed. 

"  Sleeping  at  his  post !  "  said  Rowland,  smiling, 

"That's  a  punishable  offence,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Light 
sharply.  She  was  on  the  point  of  calling  him  in  the 
same  tone,  when  he  suddenly  opened  his  eyes,  stared  a 
moment,  and  then  rose  with  a  smile  and  a  bow. 

"  Excuse  me,  dear  lady,"  he  said,  "  I  was  overcome  by 
the — the  great  heat." 

"  Nonsense,  Cavaliere  !  "  cried  the  lady,  "  you  know  we 
are  perishing  here  with  the  cold  !  You  had  better  go  and 
cool  yourself  in  one  of  the  other  rooms." 

"  I  obey,  dear  lady,"  said  the  Cavaliere  ;  and  with  another 
salutation  to  Rowland  he  departed,  walking  very  discreetly 
on  his  toes.  Rowland  outstayed  him  but  a  short  time,  for 
he  was  not  fond  of  Mrs.  Light,  and  he  found  nothing  very 
inspiring  in  her  frank  intimation  that  if  he  chose  he  might 
become  "a  favourite.  He  was  disgusted  with  himself  for 
pleasing  her;  he  confounded  his  fatal  urbanity.     In   the 


124  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

courtyard  of  the  palace  he  overtook  the  Cavaliere,  who  had 
stopped  at  the  porter's  lodge  to  say  a  word  to  his  little 
girl.  She  was  a  young  lady  of  very  tender  years  and  she 
wore  a  very  dirty  pinafore.  He  had  taken  her  up  in  his 
arms  and  was  singing  an  infantine  rhyme  to  her,  and  she 
was  staring  at  him  with  big  soft  Roman  eyes.  On  seeing 
Rowland  he  put  her  down  with  a  kiss,  and  stepped  forward 
with  a  conscious  grin,  an  unresentful  admission  that  he 
was  sensitive  both  to  chubbiness  and  to  ridicule.  Rowland 
began  to  pity  him  again  ;  he  had  taken  his  dismissal  from 
the  drawing-room  so  meekly. 

"  You  don't  keep  your  promise  to  come  and  see  me," 
said  the  young  man,  "Don't  forget  it.  I  want  you  to 
tell  me  about  Rome  thirty  years  ago." 

''Thirty  years  ago]  Ah,  dear  sir,  Rome  is  Rome 
still ;  a  place  where  strange  things  happen  !  But  happy 
things  too,  since  I  have  your  renewed  permission  to  call. 
You  do  me  too  much  honour.  Is  it  in  the  morning  or  in 
the  evening  that  I  should  least  intrude  ?  " 

"  Take  your  own  time,  Cavaliere;  only  come  some  time. 
I  depend  uj^on  you,"  said  Rowland. 

The  Cavaliere  thanked  him  with  a  humble  obeisance. 
To  old  Giacosa  too,  he  felt  that  he  was,  in  Roman  phrase, 
sympathetic ;  but  the  idea  of  pleasing  this  extremely  re- 
duced gentleman  was  not  disagreeable  to  him. 

Miss  light's  bust  stood  for  a  while  on  exhibition  in 
Roderick's  studio,  and  half  the  foreign  colony  came  to  see 
it.     With  the  completion  of  his  work,  however,  Roderic'.'s 

visits  at  the  Palazzo  F by  no  means  came  to  an  end. 

He  spent  half  his  time  in  Mrs.  Light's  drawing-room,  and 
began  to  be  talked  about  as  "  attentive "  to  Christina. 
The  success  of  the  bust  restored  his  equanimity,  and  in  the 
garrulity  of  his  good-humoiir  he  suffered  Rowland  to  see 
that  she  was  just  now  the  object  uppermost  in  his  thoughts. 
Rowland,  when  they  talked  of  her,  was  rather  listener 
than  speaker ;  partly  because  Roderick's  own  tone  was  so 
resonant  and  exultant,  and  partly  because,  when  his  com 
panion  laughed  at  him  for  having  called  her  unsafe,  he 
was  too  perplexed  to  defend  himself.  The  impression 
remained  that  she  was  unsafe ;  that  she  was  a  complex, 
wilful,  passionate,  creature  who  might  easily  engulph  a  too 
confiding  spirit  in   the   eddies  of   her  capricious  temper. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  1-25 

And  yet  he  strongly  felt  her  charm ;  the  eddies  had  a 
strange  fascination  !  Roderick,  in  the  glow  of  that  re- 
newed admiration  provoked  by  the  fixed  attention  of  por- 
trayal, was  never  weary  of  descanting  on  the  extraordinary 
perfection  of  her  beauty, 

"  I  had  no  idea  of  it,"  he  said,  "  till  I  began  to  look 
at  her  with  an  eye  to  reproducing  line  for  line  and 
curve  for  curve.  Her  fiice  is  the  most  exijuisite  piece 
of  modelling  that  ever  came  from  creative  hands.  Not 
a  line  without  meaning,  not  a  hair's  breadth  that  is 
not  admirably  finished.  And  then  her  mouth  !  It  is  as 
if  a  pair  of  lips  had  been  shaped  to  utter  pure  truth 
without  doing  it  dishonour  !  "  Later,  after  he  had  been 
working  for  a  week,  he  declared  that  if  the  girl  had 
been  inordinately  plain  she  would  still  be  the  most  fasci- 
nating of  women.  "  I  have  quite  forgotten  her  beauty," 
he  said,  "  or  rather  I  have  ceased  to  perceive  it  as 
something  distinct  and  defined,  something  independent  to 
the  rest  of  her.  She  is  all  one,  and  all  consummately 
interesting  ! 

"  What  d"oes  she  do — what  does  she  say,  that  is  so 
remarkable  1 "  Rowland  had  asked. 

"  Say  1  Sometimes  nothing — sometimes  everything. 
She  is  never  the  same.  Sometimes  she  walks  in  and  takes 
her  place  without  a  word,  without  a  smile,  gravely,  stifliy, 
as  if  it  were  an  awful  bore.  She  hardly  looks  at  me,  and 
she  walks  away  without  even  glancing  at  my  work.  On 
other  days  she  laughs  and  chatters  and  asks  endless  ques- 
tions and  pours  out  the  most  irresistible  nonsense.  She  is 
a  creature  of  moods ;  you  can't  count  upon  her  ;  she  keeps 
observation  on  the  stretch.  And  then,  bless  you,  she  has 
seen  so  much  of  the  world !  Her  talk  is  full  of  the 
strangest  allusions  !  " 

"  It  is  altogether  a  very  singular  type  of  young  L^dy." 
said  Rowland,  after  the  visit  which  I  have  related  at 
length.  "  It  may  be  a  charm,  but  it  is  certainly  not  the 
orthodox  charm  of  marriageable  maidenhood,  the  charm 
of  shrinking  innocence  and  soft  docilit}^.  H)ut  American 
girls  are  accused  of  being  more  knowing  than  any  others, 
and  this  wonderful  damsel  is  nominally  an  American. 
But  it  has  taken  twenty  years  of  Europe  to  make  her 
what  she  is  !      The  first  time  we  saw  her,  I  remember  you 


120  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

called  her  a  product  of  the  old  world,  and  certainly  you 
were  not  far  wrong." 

"  Ah,  she  lias  an  atmosphere,"  said  Roderick,  in  a  tone 
of  high  appreciation. 

"  Young  unmarried  women  should  be  careful  not  to 
have  too  much  !  " 

"  Ah,  you  don't  forgive  her  for  hitting  you  so  hard  !  A 
man  ought  to  be  llattered  at  such  a  girl  as  that  taking  so 
much  notice  of  him." 

"  A  man  is  never  flattered  at  a  woman's  not  liking  him," 
said  Rowland. 

"  Are  you  sure  she  doesn't  like  you  1  That's  to  the 
credit  of  your  humility.  A  fellow  of  more  vanity  might, 
on  the  evidence,  persuade  himself  that  he  was  in  favour." 

"  He  would  have  also,"  said  Rowland  laughing,  "  to  be  a 
fellow  of  remarkable  ingenuity !  "  He  asked  himself 
privately  how  the  deuce  Roderick  reconciled  it  to  his 
conscience  to  think  so  much  more  of  the  girl  he  was  not 
engaged  to  than  of  the  other.  But  it  amounted  almost  to 
arrogance  in  poor  Rowland,  you  may  say,  to  pretend  to 
know  how  often  Roderick  thought  of  Mary  Garland.  He 
wondered  gloomily  at  any  rate  whether  for  men  of  his 
companion's  large  easy  power  there  was  not  a  larger  moral 
law  than  for  narrow  mediocrities  like  himself,  who,  yield- 
ing Nature  a  meagre  interest  on  her  investment  (such  as  it 
was),  had  no  reason  to  expect  from  her  this  alfectionate 
laxity  as  to  their  accounts.  Was  it  not  a  part  of  the  eternal 
fitness  of  things  that  Roderick,  while  rhapsodising  about 
Christina  Light,  should  have  it  at  his  command  to  look  at 
you  with  eyes  of  the  most  guileless  and  unclouded  blue, 
and  to  shake  off  your  musty  imputations  by  a  toss  of  his 
picturesque  brown  locks  1  Or  had  he,  in  fact,  no  conscience 
to  speak  of  1     Happy  fellow  either  way  ! 

Our  friend  Gloriani  came,  among  others,  to  congratulate 
Roderick  on  his  model  and  what  he  had  made  of  her. 
"  Devilish  pretty,  through  and  through  !  "  he  said  as  he 
looked  at  the  bust.  "Capital  handling  of  the  neck  and 
throat ;  lovely  work  on  the  nose.  You  are  a  detestably 
lucky  fellow,  my  boy !  But  you  ought  not  to  have 
squandered  such  material  on  a  simple  bust ;  you  should 
have  made  a  great  imaginative  figure.  If  I  could  only 
have  got  hold  of  her  I  would  have  put  her  into  a  statue  in 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  127 

spite  of  herself.  What  a  pity  she  is  not  a  ragged  Traste- 
verine  whom  we  might  have  for  a  franc  an  hour  !  I  have 
been  carrying  about  in  my  head  for  years  a  delicious  design 
for  a  fantastic  figure,  but  it  has  always  stayed  there  for 
want  of  a  tolerable  model.  I  have  seen  intimations  of  the 
type,  but  this  consummate  creature  is  the  perfection  of  it. 
As  soon  as  I  saw  her  I  said  to  myself,  '  By  Jove,  there's 
my  statue  in  the  flesh  !  '  " 

"  What  is  your  subject "?  "  asked  Roderick. 
I ''Don't  take  it  ill,"  said  Gloriani.     "You  know  I  am 
the  very  deuce  for  observation.      She  would  make  a  magni- 
ficent Herodias  !  "/ 

If  Roderick  haa  taken  it  ill  (which  was  unlikely,  for 
we  know  he  thought  Gloriani  an  ass  and  expected  little  of 
his  wisdom),  he  might  have  been  soothed  by  the  candid 
incense  of  Sam  Singleton,  who  came  and  sat  for  an  hour 
in  a  sort  of  mental  prostration  before  both  bust  and  artist. 
But  Roderick's  attitude  in  regard  to  his  patient  little 
devotee  was  one  of  undisguised,  though  friendly  amuse- 
ment ;  and,  indeed,  from  a  strictly  plastic  point  of  view  the 
poor  fellow's  diminutive  stature  and  grotesque  physiognomy 
were  a  bribe  to  levity.  "  Ah,  don't  envy  our  friend," 
Rowland  said  to  Singleton  afterwards,  on  his  expressing 
with  a  little  groan  of  depreciation  of  his  own  paltry  per- 
formances his  sense  of  the  brilliancy  of  Roderick's  talent. 
'*  You  sail  nearer  the  shore,  but  you  sail  in  smoother 
waters.  Be  contented  with  what  you  are  and  paint  me 
another  picture." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  envy  Hudson  anything  he  possesses," 
Singleton  said,  "  because  to  take  anything  away  would 
spoil  his  beautiful  completeness.  '  Complete,'  that's  what 
he  is ;  while  we  little  clevernesses  are  like  half  rijiened 
plums,  only  good  eating  on  the  side  that  has  had  a  glimpse 
of  the  sun.  Nature  has  made  him  so,  and  fortune  confesses 
to  it !  He  is  the  handsomest  fellow  in  Rome,  he  has  the 
most  genius,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  the  most  beautiful 
girl  in  the  world  comes  and  offers  to  be  his  model.  If  that 
is  not  completeness  where  shall  we  find  it  'i  " 


128  RODERICK  HUDSON. 


X. 


One  morning,  going  into  Roderick's  studio,  Rowland 
found  the  young  sculptor  entertaiuing  Miss  Blanchard — 
if  this  is  not  too  flattering  a  description  of  his  gracefully 
passive  tolerance  of  her  presence.  He  had  never  liked 
her  and  never  climbed  into  her  sky  studio  to  observe  her 
wonderful  manipulation  of  petals.  He  had  once  quoted 
Tennyson  against  her — 

"  And  is  there  any  moral  shut 
Within  the  busoni  of  the  rose  ? " 

"  In  all  Miss  Blanchard's  roses  you  may  be  sure  there  is 
a  moral,"  he  had  said.  "  You  can  see  it  sticking  out  its 
head,  and  if  you  go  to  smell  the  flower  it  scratches  your 
nose."  But  on  this  occasion  she  had  come  with  a  projiitia- 
tory  gift — introducing  her  friend  Mr.  Leavenworth.  Mr. 
Leavenworth  was  a  tall,  expansive,  bland  gentleman,  w4th 
a  carefully  brushed  whisker  and  a  spacious,  fair,  well- 
favoured  face,  which  seemed  somehow  to  have  more  room 
in  it  than  was  occupied  by  a  smile  of  superior  benevolence, 
so  that  (with  his  smooth  white  forehead)  it  bore  a  certain 
resemblance  to  a  large  parlour  with  a  very  florid  carpet, 
but  no  pictures  on  the  walls.^i  He  held  his  head  high, 
talked  impressively,  and  told  Roderick  within  five  minutes 
that  he  was  a  widower,  travelling  to  distract  his  mind,  and 
that  he  had  lately  retired  from  the  proprietorship  of  large 
mines  of  borax  in  Pennsylvania.  Roderick  supposed  at 
first  that  under  the  influence  of  his  bereavement  he  had 
come  to  order  a  tombstone ;  but  observing  the  extreme 
blaudness  of  his  address  to  Miss  Blanchard  he  credited 
him  with  a  judicious  prevision  that  by  the  time  the  tomb- 
stone should  be  completed,  a  monument  of  his  inconsolability 
might  have  become  an  anachronism.  Mr.  Leavenworth, 
however,  was  disposed  to  order  something. 

"  You  will  find  me  eager  to  patronise  our  indigenous 
talent,"  he  said.  "  You  may  be  sure  that  I  have  employed 
a  native  architect  for  the  large  residential  structure  that 


KODEPJCK  HUDSON.  129 

I  am  erecting  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  I  have  sustained 
a  considerable  loss ;  but  are  we  not  told  that  art  is  a  con- 
solation ?  That's  why  I  have  come  to  you,  sir.  In  a  tasteful 
home,  surrounded  by  the  memorials  of  my  wanderings,  I 
hope  to  recover  my  moral  tone.  I  ordered  in  Paris  the 
complete  appurtenances  of  a  dining-room.  Do  you  think 
you  could  do  something  for  my  library  ?  It  is  to  be  filled 
with  well-selected  authors,  and  I  think  a  pure  white  image 
in  this  style  " — pointing  to  one  of  Eoderick's  statues — 
"  standing  out  against  the  morocco  and  gilt,  would  have  a 
noble  effect.  The  subject  I  have  already  fixed  upon.  I 
desire  an  allegorical  representation  of  Culture.  Do  you 
think  now,"  asked  Mr.  Leavenworth,  encouragingly,  "you 
could  rise  to  the  conception  1 " 

"  A  most  interesting  subject  for  a  truly  serious  mind," 
remarked  Miss  Blanchard. 

Roderick  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  then — "The 
simplest  thing  I  could  do,"  he  said,  "  would  be  to  make 
a  full-length  portrait  of  Miss  Blanchard.  I  could  give 
her  a  scroll  in  her  hand,  and  that  would  do  for  the 
allegory." 

Miss  Blanchard  coloured;  the  compliment  might  be 
ironical ;  and  there  was  ever  afterwards  a  reflection  of 
her  uncertainty  in  her  opinion  of  Roderick's  genius.  Mr. 
Leavenworth  responded  that  with  all  deference  to  Miss 
Blanchard' s  beauty  he  desired  something  colder,  more 
monumental,  more  impersonal.  "If  I  were  to  be  the 
happy  possessor  of  a  likeness  of  Miss  Blanchard,"  he 
added,  "  I  should  prefer  to  have  it  in  no  factitious 
disguise  !  " 

Roderick  consented  to  entertain  the  proposal,  and  while 
they  were  discussing  it,  Rowland  had  a  little  talk  with 
the  judicious  Augusta.     "  Who  is  your  friend  1 "  he  asked. 

"  A  very  worthy  man.  The  architect  of  his  own  fortune 
— which  is  magnificent.     One  of  nature's  gentlemen  !  " 

This  was  a  trifle  sententious,  and  Rowland  turned  to 
the  bust  of  Miss  Light.  Like  every  one  else  in  Rome  by 
this  time,  Miss  Blanchard  had  an  opinion  on  the  young 
girl's  beauty,  and  in  her  own  fashion  she  expressed  it  in 
a  quotable  phrase.  "  She  looks  half  like  a  Madonna  and 
half  like  a  ballerina  !  " 

Mr.  Leavenworth  and  Roderick  came  to  an  understanding, 

I 


130  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

and  the  young  sculptor  good-naturedly  promised  to  do  Lis 
best  to  rise  to  his  patron's  conception.  "  I£is  conception 
be  hanged  ! "  Koderick  exclaimed  after  he  had  departed. 
"  His  conception  is  sitting  on  an  india-rubber  cushion, 
with  a  pen  in  her  ear  and  the  lists  of  the  stock  exchange 
in  her  hand.  I  shall  have  to  invent  something  myself. 
For  the  money  I  ought  to  be  able  to !  " 

Mrs.  Light  meanwhile  had  fairly  established  herself  in 
Roman  society.  "  Heaven  knows  how !  "  Madame  Grandoni 
said  to  Rowland,  who  had  mentioned  to  her  several  evidences 
of  the  lady's  prosperity.  "  In  such  a  case  there  is  nothing 
like  audacity.  A  month  ago  she  knew  no  one  but  her 
washerwoman,  and  now  I  am  told  that  the  cards  of  Roman 
princesses  are  to  be  seen  on  her  table.  She  is  evidently 
determined  to  play  a  great  part,  and  she  has  the  wit  to 
perceive  that,  to  make  remunerative  acrjuaintances,  you 
must  seem  yourself  to  be  worth  knowing.  You  must 
have  striking  rooms  and  a  bewildering  variety  of  dresses, 
you  must  give  dinners  and  dances  and  concerts.  She  is 
spending  a  lot  of  money,  and  you'll  see  that  in  two  or 
three  weeks  she  will  take  upon  herself  to  open  the  season 
by  giving  a  magnificent  ball.  Of  course  it  is  Christina's 
beauty  that  floats  her.  People  go  to  see  her  because  they 
are  curious." 

*'And  they  go  again  because  they  are  charmed,"  said 
Rowland.  "Miss  Christina  is  a  very  remarkable  young 
woman." 

''  Oh,  I  know  it  well ;  I  had  occasion  to  say  so  to 
myself,  the  other  day.  She  came  to  see  me  of  her  own 
free  will,  and  for  an  hour  she  was  deeply  interesting. 
I  think  she  is  an  actress,  but  she  believes  in  her  part 
w^hile  she  is  playing  it.  She  took  it  into  her  head  the 
other  day  to  believe  that  she  was  very  unhappy,  and  she 
sat  there,  where  you  are  sitting,  and  told  me  a  tale  of  her 
miseries  which  brought  tears  into  my  eyes.  She  cried  pro- 
fusely, and  as  naturally  as  possible.  She  said  she  was 
weary  of  life  and  that  she  knew  no  one  but  me  she  could 
speak  frankly  to.  She  must  speak,  or  she  should  go  mad. 
She  sobbed  as  if  her  heart  would  break.  I  assure  you  it's 
well  for  you  susceptible  young  men  that  you  don't  see  her 
when  she  sobs.  She  said  in  so  many  words  that  her  mother 
was  an  immoral  woman.     Heaven  knows  w^hat  she  meant ! 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  131 

She  meant  I  suppose  that  she  makes  debts  that  she  knows 
she  can't  pay.  She  said  the  life  they  led  was  horrible; 
that  it  was  monstrous  a  poor  girl  should  be  dragged  about 
the  world  to  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  She  was  meant 
for  better  things ;  she  could  be  perfectly  happy  in  poverty. 
It  was  not  money  she  wanted.  I  might  not  believe  her, 
but  she  really  cared  for  serious  things.  Sometimes  she 
thought  of  taking  poison  !  " 

"  What  did  you  say  to  that  ?  " 

"I  recommended  her  to  come  and  see  me  instead.  I 
would  help  her  about  as  much,  and  I  was  on  the  w^hole  less 
unpleasant.  Of  course  I  could  help  her  only  by  letting 
her  talk  herself  out,  and  kissing  her,  and  patting  her 
beautiful  hands,  and  telling  her  to  be  patient  and  she 
would  be  happy  yet.  About  once  in  two  months  I  expect 
her  to  reappear  on  the  same  errand,  and  meanwhile  to  quite 
forget  my  existence.  I  believe  I  melted  to  the  point  of 
telling  her  that  I  would  find  some  good,  kind,  quiet 
husband  for  her;  but  she  declared,  almost  with  fury, 
that  she  was  sick  of  the  very  name  of  husbands,  which 
she  begged  I  would  never  mention  again.  And  in  fact  it 
was  a  rash  offer;  for  I  am  sure  that  there  is  not  a  man 
of  the  kind  that  might  really  make  a  woman  happy  but 
would  be  afraid  to  marry  mademoiselle.  Looked  at  in 
that  way  she  is  certainly  very  much  to  be  pitied,  and 
indeed,  altogether,  though  I  don't  think  she  either  means 
all  she  says,  or,  by  a  great  deal,  says  all  that  she  means, 
I  feel  very  sorry  for  her." 

Kowland  met  the  two  ladies  about  this  time  at  several 
entertainments,  and  looked  at  Christina  with  a  kind  of 
imaginative  attendrissement.  He  suspected  more  than  once 
that  there  had  been  a  passionate  scene  between  them  about 
coming  out,  and  he  wondered  what  arguments  Mrs.  Light 
had  found  effective.  But  Christina's  face  told  no  tales, 
and  she  moved  about,  beautiful  and  silent,  looking  absently 
over  people's  heads,  barely  heeding  the  men  who  pressed 
about  her,  and  suggesting  somehow  that  the  soul  of  a 
world-wearied  mortal  had  found  its  way  into  the  blooming 
body  of  a  goddess.  "  Where  in  the  world  has  Miss  Light 
been  before  she  is  twenty,"  observers  asked,  ''  to  have  left 
all  her  illusions  behind  1 "  And  the  general  verdict  was 
that    though    she   was    incomparably   beautiful    she   was 

I  2 


132  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

intolerably  proud.  Young  ladies  to  whom  the  former  dis- 
tinction was  not  conceded  were  free  to  reflect  that  she  was 
"  not  at  all  liked." 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  guess,  however,  how  they 
reconciled  this  conviction  with  a  variety  of  contradictory 
evidence,  and  in  especial  with  the  spectacle  of  Roderick's  in- 
veterate devotion.  All  Rome  might  behold  that  he  at  least 
'*  liked  "  Christina  Light.  Wherever  she  appeared  he  was 
either  awaiting  her  or  immediately  followed  her.  He  was 
perpetually  at  her  side,  trying  apparently  to  preserve  some 
broken  thread  of  talk,  the  fate  of  which  was,  to  judge  by 
her  face,  profoundly  immaterial  to  the  young  lady.  People 
in  general  smiled  at  the  radiant  good  faith  of  the  hand- 
some young  sculptor  and  asked  each  other  whether  he 
really  supposed  that  beauties  of  that  quality  were  meant 
to  give  themselves  to  juvenile  artists.  But  although 
Christina's  deportment,  as  I  have  said,  was  one  of  superb 
inexpressiveness,  Rowland  had  derived  from  Pvoderick  no 
suspicion  that  he  suffered  from  snubbing,  and  he  was 
therefore  surprised  at  an  incident  that  occurred  one  evening 
at  a  large  musical  party.  Roderick  as  usual  was  in  the 
field,  and  on  the  ladies  taking  the  chairs  which  had  been 
arranged  for  them  he  immediately  placed  himself  beside 
Christina.  As  most  of  the  gentlemen  were  standing,  his 
position  made  him  as  conspicuous  as  Hamlet  at  Ophelia's 
feet.  Rowland  was  leaning  someAvhat  apart,  against  the 
chimney-piece.  There  was  a  long  solemn  pause  before  the 
music  began,  and  in  the  midst  of  it  Christina  rose,  left  her 
place,  came  the  whole  length  of  the  immense  room,  with 
every  one  looking  at  her,  and  stopped  before  him.  She 
was  neither  pale  nor  flushed ;  she  had  a  soft  smile. 

"  Will  you  do  me  a  favour'  1  "  she  asked. 

"  A  thousand  !  " 

"  Not  now,  but  at  your  earliest  convenience.  Please 
remind  Mr.  Hudson  that  he  is  not  in  a  New  England 
village — that  it  is  not  the  custom  in  Rome  to  address  one's 
conversation  exclusively,  night  after  night,  to  the  same 
poor  girl,  and  that " 

The  music  broke  out  with  a  great  blare  and  covered  her 
voice.  She  made  a  gesture  of  impatience,  and  Rowland 
offered  her  his  arm  and  led  her  back  to  her  seat. 

The  next  day  he  repeated  her  words  to  Roderick,  who 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  133 

burst  into  joyous  laughter.  "  She  has  a  delightful  un- 
expectedness !  "  he  cried.  '*  She  must  do  everything  that 
comes  into  her  head  1 ' ' 

"  Had  she  never  asked  you  before  not  to  talk  to  her  so 
much  1  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  she  has  often  said  to  me,  '  Mind  you 
now,  I  forbid  you  to  leave  me.  Here  comes  that  tiresome 
So-and-so.'  She  cares  as  little  about  the  custom  as  I  do. 
What  could  be  a  better  proof  than  her  walking  up  to  you 
with  five  hundred  people  looking  at  her  ?  Is  that  the 
custom  for  young  girls  in  Rome  ] " 

"  Why  then  should  she  take  such  a  step  1  " 

"  Because  as  she  sat  there  it  came  into  her  head.  That's 
reason  enough  for  her  !  I  have  imagined  she  wishes  me 
well,  as  they  say  here — though  she  has  never  distinguished 
me  in  such  a  way  as  that !  " 

Madame  Grandoni  had  foretold  the  truth ;  Mrs.  Light 
a  couple  of  weeks  later  convoked  all  Roman  society  to  a 
brilliant  ball.  Rowland  went  late,  and  found  the  staircase 
so  encumbered  with  flower-pots  and  servants  that  he  was 
a  long  time  making  his  way  into  the  presence  of  the 
hostess.  At  last  he  approached  her  as  she  stood  making 
curtsies  at  the  door  with  her  daughter  by  her  side.  Some 
of  Mrs.  Light's  curtsies  were  very  low,  for  she  had  the 
happiness  of  receiving  a  number  of  the  social  potentates 
of  the  Roman  world.  She  was  rosy  with  triumph,  to  say 
nothing  of  a  less  metaphysical  cause,  and  was  evidently 
vastly  contented  with  herself,  with  her  company,  and  with 
the  general  attitude  of  destiny.  Her  daughter  was  less 
overtly  jubilant,  and  distributed  her  greetings  with  im- 
partial frigidity.  She  had  never  been  so  beautiful. 
Dressed  simply  in  vaporous  white,  relieved  with  half  a 
dozen  white  roses,  the  perfection  of  her  features  and  of  her 
person,  and  the  mysterious  depth  of  her  expression,  seemed 
to  glow  with  the  white  light  of  a  splendid  pearl.  She 
recognised  no  one  individually,  and  made  her  salutation 
slowly,  gravely,  with  her  eyes  on  the  ground.  Rowland 
fancied  that,  as  he  stood  before  her,  her  obeisance  was 
slightly  exaggerated,  as  with  an  intention  of  irony ;  but 
he  smiled  philosophically  to  himself,  and  reflected  as 
he  passed  on  that  if  she  disliked  him  he  had  nothing  to 
i-eproach   himself   with.      He   walked   about,   had   a   few 


134  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

words  with  Miss  Blancliard,  who  with  a  fillet  of  cameos  in 
her  hair  was  leaning  on  the  arm  of  Mr.  Leavenworth,  and 
at  last  came  upon  the  Cavaliere  Giacosa,  modestly  stationed 
in  a  corner.  The  little  gentleman's  coat  lappet  was 
decorated  with  an  enormous  bouquet,  and  his  neck  encased 
in  a  voluminous  white  handkerchief  of  the  fashion  of 
thirty  years  ago.  His  arms  were  folded,  and  he  was 
surveying  the  scene  with  contracted  eyelids,  through  which 
you  saw  the  glitter  of  his  intensely  dark  vivacious  pupil. 
He  immediately  embarked  on  an  elaborate  apology  for  not 
having  yet  manifested  as  he  felt  it  his  sense  of  the  honour 
Kowland  had  done  him. 

"  I  am  always  on  service  with  these  ladies,  you  see,"  he 
explained,  "  and  that  is  a  duty  to  which  one  would  not 
willingly  be  faithless  for  an  instant." 

"  Evidently,"  said  Rowland,  "  you  are  a  very  devoted 
friend.  Mrs.  Light,  in  her  situation,  is  very  happy  in 
having  you." 

"  We  are  old  friends,"  said  the  Cavaliere,  gravely.  "  Old 
friends.  I  knew  the  signora  many  years  ago,  when  she 
was  the  prettiest  woman  in  Rome — or  rather  in  Ancona, 
which  is  even  better.  The  beautiful  Christina  now  is 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  young  girl  in  Europe !  " 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Rowland. 

"  Very  well,  sir,  I  taught  her  to  read  ;  I  guided  her 
little  hands  to  touch  the  piano."  And  at  these  faded 
memories  the  Cavaliere' s  eyes  glittered  more  brightly. 
Rowland  half  expected  him  to  proceed  with  a  little  flash 
of  long-repressed  passion,  "  And  now — and  now  sir,  they 
treat-  me  as  you  observed  the  other  day !  ' '  But  the 
Cavaliere  only  looked  out  at  him  keenly  irom  among  his 
wrinkles,  and  seemed  to  say  with  all  the  vividness  of  the 
Italian  glance,  "  Oh,  I  say  nothing  more.  I  am  not  so 
shallow  as  to  complain  !  " 

Evidently  the  Cavaliere  was  not  shallow,  and  Rowland 
repeated  respectfully,  "  You  are  a  devoted  friend." 

"  That's  very  true.  I  am  a  devoted  friend.  A  man 
may  do  himself  justice  after  twenty  years  !  " 

Rowland  after  a  pause  made  some  remark  about  the 
beauty  of  the  ball.     It  was  very  brilliant. 

"  Stupendous  !  '  said  the  Cavaliere  solemnly.  "  It  is  a 
great  day.     We  have  four  Roman  princes,  to  say  nothing 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  135 

of  others."  And  he  coimted  them  over  on  his  fingers  and 
held  up  his  hand  triumphantly.  "  And  there  she  stands, 
the  girl  to  whom  I — I,  Giuseppe  Giacosa — taught  her 
alphabet  and  her  piano  scales  ;  there  she  stands  in  her 
incomparable  beauty,  and  Roman  princes  come  and  bow 
to  her !  Here,  in  his  quiet  corner,  her  old  master  permits 
himself  to  be  proud." 

"  It  is  very  friendly  of  him,"  said  Rowland  smiling. 

The  Cavaliere  contracted  his  lids  a  little  more  and  gave 
another  keen  glance.  "  It  is  very  natural,  signore.  The 
Christina  is  a  good  girl ;  she  remembers  my  little  services. 
But  here  comes,"  he  added  in  a  moment,  "  the  young  Prince 
of  the  Fine  Arts.     I  am  sure  he  has  bowed  lowest  of  all." 

Rowland  looked  round  and  saw  Roderick  moving  slowly 
across  the  room  and  casting  about  him  his  usual  luminous, 
unshrinking  looks.  He  presently  joined  them,  nodded 
familiarly  to  the  Cavaliere,  and  immediately  demanded  of 
Rowland,  "  Have  you  seen  her  ?  " 

"  I  have  seen  Miss  Light,"  said  Rowland.  "  She's 
magnificent." 

"  I'm  intoxicated  with  her  beauty  !  "  cried  Roderick ;  so 
loud  that  several  persons  turned  round. 

Rowland  saw  that  he  was  flushed,  and  laid  his  hand  on 
his  arm.  Roderick  was  trembling.  "  If  you  will  go  away," 
Rowland  said  instantly,  "  I  will  go  with  you." 

"  Go  away  1  "  cried  Roderick,  almost  angrily.  "  I  intend 
to  dance  with  her  !  " 

The  Cavaliere  had  been  watching  him  attentively ;  he 
gently  laid  his  hand  on  his  other  arm.  "  Softly,  softly, 
dear  young  man,"  he  said.  "  Let  me  speak  to  you  as 
a  friend." 

*'  Oh,  speak  even  as  an  enemy  and  I  shall  not  mind  it," 
Roderick  answered  frowning. 

"  Be  very  reasonable  then  and  go  away." 

"  Why  the  devil  should  I  go  away  1 " 

"  Because  you  are  in  love,"  said  the  Cavaliere. 
^I  might  as  well  be  in  love  here  as  in  the  streets." 
\  "  Carry  your  love  as  far  as  possible  from  Christina.     She 
will  not  listen  to  you — she  can't." 

"  She  '  can't '  ?  "  demanded  Roderick.  "  She  is  not  a 
person  of  whom  you  may  say  that.  She  can  if  she  will ; 
bhe  does  as  she  chooses." 


13G  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"Up  to  a  certain  point.  It  would  take  too  long  to 
explain ;  I  only  beg  you  to  believe  that  if  you  continue  to 
love  Miss  Light  you  will  be  very  unhappy.  Have  you  a 
princely  title  1  have  you  a  princely  fortune  1  Otherwise 
you  can  never  have  her." 

And  the  Cavaliere  folded  his  arms  again,  like  a  man  who 
has  done  his  duty.  Roderick  wiped  his  forehead  and 
looked  askance  at  Kowland ;  he  seemed  to  be  guessing  his 
thoughts  and  they  made  him  blush  a  little.  But  he 
smiled  blandly,  and  addressing  the  Cavaliere,  "  I  am  much 
obliged  to  you  for  the  information,"  he  said.  "  Now  that  I 
have  obtained  it,  let  me  tell  you  that  I  am  no  more  in  love 
with  Miss  Light  than  you  are.  My  friend  here  knows 
that.  I  admire  her — yes,  immensely.  But  that's  no  one's 
business  but  my  own,  and  though  I  have  as  you  say  neither 
a  princely  title  nor  a  princely  fortune,  I  mean  to  suffer 
neither  those  advantages  nor  those  who  possess  them  to 
diminish  my  right." 

"  If  you  are  not  in  love,  my  dear  young  man,"  said  the 
Cavaliere  with  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  an  apologetic 
smile,  "  so  much  the  better  1  But  let  me  entreat  you  as  an 
affectionate  friend  to  keep  a  watch  on  your  emotions.  You 
are  young,  you  are  handsome,  you  have  a  brilliant  genius 
and  a  generous  heart,  but — I  may  say  it  almost  with 
authority — Christina  is  not  for  you  !  " 

Whether  Roderick  were  in  love  or  not,  he  was  nettled 
by  what  apparently  seemed  to  him  an  obtrusive  negation 
of  an  inspiring  possibility.  "You  speak  as  if  she  had 
made  her  choice!"  he  cried.  "Yv^ilhout  pretending  to 
confidential  information  on  the  subject,  I  am  sure  she 
has  not." 

"No,  but  she  must  make  it  soon,"  said  the  Cavaliere. 
And  raising  his  forefinger,  he  laid  it  against  his  under  lip. 
"  She  must  choose  a  name  and  a  fortune — and  she  will !  " 

"  She  will  do  exactly  as  her  inclination  prompts  !  She 
will  marry  the  man  who  pleases  her,  if  he  hasn't  a  dollar  ! 
I  know  her  better  than  you." 

The  Cavaliere  turned  a  little  paler  than  usual  and 
smiled  more  urbanely.  "  No,  no,  my  dear  young  man, 
you  do  not  know  her  better  than  I.  You  have  not  watched 
her  day  by  day  for  twenty  years.  I  too  have  admired  her. 
She  is  a  good  girl  ;  she  has  never  said  an  unkind  word  to 


RODEEICK  HUDSON.  137 

me ;  the  blessed  Virgin  be  thanked  !  But  she  must  have 
a  brilliant  destiny  ;  it  has  been  marked  out  for  her  and 
she  will  submit.  You  had  better  believe  me  ;  it  may  save 
you  much  suffering." 

"  "We  shall  see  !  "  said  Roderick,  with  an  excited  laugh. 

"  Certainly  we  shall  see.  But  I  retire  from  the  dis- 
cussion," the  Cavaliere  added.  "  I  have  no  wish  to  pro- 
voke you  to  attempt  to  prove  to  me  that  I  am  wrong.  You 
are  already  excited.^' 

"  No  more  than  is  natural  to  a  man  who  in  an  hour  or 
so  is  to  dance  a  cotillon  with  a  divinity." 

"  A  cotillon  ?  has  she  promised  1  " 

Boderick  patted  the  air  with  a  grand  confidence.  "  You'll 
see !  "  His  gesture  might  almost  have  been  taken  to  mean 
that  the  state  of  his  relations  with  the  "  divinity  "  was  such 
that  they  quite  dispensed  with  vain  preliminaries. 

The  Cavaliere  gave  an  exaggerated  shrug.  "You  will 
make  a  great  many  mourners  !  " 

"  He  has  made  a  mourner  already  !  "  Bowland  murmured 
to  himself.  This  was  evidently  not  the  first  time  that  refer- 
ence had  been  made  between  Boderick  and  the  Cavaliere 
to  the  young  man's  possible  passion,  a,nd  Boderick  had 
failed  to  consider  it  the  simplest  and  most  natural  course 
to  say  in  three  words  to  the  vigilant  little  gentleman  that 
there  was  no  cause  for  alarm — his  affections  were  pre- 
occupied. Bowland  hoped  silently  with  some  dryness  that 
his  motives  for  reticence  were  of  a  finer  kind  than  they 
seemed  to  be.  He  turned  away ;  it  was  irritating  to  look 
at  Boderick' s  radiant  unscrupulous  eagerness.  The  tide 
was  setting  towards  the  supper-room  and  he  drifted  with 
it  to  the  door.  The  crowd  at  this  point  was  dense,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  wait  for  some  minutes  before  he  could 
advance.  At  last  he  felt  his  neighbours  dividing  behind 
him,  and  turning  he  saw  Christina  pressing  her  way  for- 
ward alone.  She  was  looking  at  no  one,  and  save  for  the 
fact  of  her  being  alone  you  would  not  have  supposed  she 
was  in  her  mother's  house.  As  she  recognised  Bowland 
she  beckoned  to  him,  took  his  arm,  and  motioned  him  to 
lead  her  into  the  supper-room.  She  said  nothing  until 
he  had  forced  a  passage  a.nd  they  stood  somewhat 
isolated. 

"  Take  me  into  the  most  out-of-the-way  corner  you  can 


138  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

find,"  she  then  said,  **  and  then  go  and  get  me  a  piece  of 
bread." 

"Nothing  more?  There  seems  to  be  everything  con- 
ceivable." 

"  A  simple  roll.  Nothing  more  on  your  peril.  Only 
bring  something  for  yourself." 

It  seemed  to  Rowland  that  the  embrasure  of  a  window 
(embrasures  in  Roman  palaces  are  deep)  was  a  retreat 
sufficiently  obscure  for  Christina  to  execute  whatever  design 
she  might  have  contrived  against  his  equanimity.  A  roll, 
after  he  had  found  her  a  seat,  was  easily  procured.  As  he 
presented  it,  he  remarked  that,  frankly  speaking,  he  was 
at  a  loss  to  understand  why  she  should  have  selected  for 
the  honour  of  a  tete-a-tete  an  individual  for  whom  she  had 
so  little  taste. 

"  Ah  yes,  I  dislike  you  !  "  said  Christina.  "  To  tell  the 
truth  I  had  forgotten  it.  There  are  so  many  people  here 
whom  I  dislike  more  that  when  I  espied  you  just  now  you 
seemed  like  an  intimate  friend.  But  I  have  not  come  into 
this  corner  to  talk  nonsense,"  she  went  on.  "  You  must 
not  think  I  always  do,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  have  never  heard  you  do  anything  else,"  said 
Rowland,  deliberately,  having  decided  that  he  owed  her 
no  compliments. 

"  Very  good.  I  like  your  frankness.  It's  quite  true. 
You  see  I  am  a  strange  girl.  To  begin  with  I  am  fright- 
fully egotistical.  Don't  Hatter  yourself  you  have  said  any- 
thing very  clever  if  you  ever  take  it  into  your  head  to 
tell  me  so.  I  know  it  much  better  than  you.  So  it  is, 
I  can't  help  it.  I  am  tired  to  death  of  myself  ;  I  would 
give  all  I  possess  to  get  out  of  myself ;  but  somehow  at 
the  end  I  find  myself  so  vastly  more  interesting  than  nine- 
tenths  of  the  people  I  meet.  If  a  person  wished  to  do 
me  a  favour  I  would  say  to  him,  '  I  beg  you  with  tears 
in  my  eyes  to  interest  me.  Be  strong,  be  positive,  be 
imperious,  if  you  will ;  only  be  something — something  that 
in  looking  at  I  can  forget  my  detestable  self  ! '  PerhajDS 
that  is  nonsense  too.  If  it  is,  I  can't  help  it.  I  can  only 
apologise  for  the  nonsense  that  I  know  to  be  such, 
and  that  I  talk — oh,  for  more  reasons  than  I  can  tell 
you !  I  wonder  whether  if  I  were  to  try  you  would 
understand  me."  , 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  139 

"  I  am  afraid  I  should  never  understand,"  said  Rowland, 
"  why  a  person  should  willingly  talk  nonsense." 

"  That  proves  how  little  you  know  about  women.  But 
I  like  your  frankness.  When  I  told  you  the  other  day 
that  you  displeased  me  I  had  an  idea  you  were  more  formal 
— how  do  you  say  it  1 — more  guinde.  I  am  very  capricious. 
To-night  I  like  you  better." 

"  Oh,  I  am  not  guinde,''  said  Rowland  gravely. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  then  for  thinking  so.  '  ISTow  I  have 
an  idea  that  you  would  make  a  useful  friend — an  intimate 
friend — a  friend  to  whom  one  could  tell  everything.  For 
such  a  friend  what  wouldn't  I  give  \]j 

Rowland  looked  at  her  in  some  perplexity.  Was  this 
touching  sincerity  or  unfathomable  coquetry  ?  Her  beauti- 
ful eyes  looked  divinely  candid  ',  but  then  if  candour  was 
beautiful,  beauty  was  apt  to  be  subtle,  "  I  hesitate  to 
recommend  myself  out  and  out  for  the  office,"  he  said, 
''  but  I  believe  that  if  you  were  to  depend  upon  me  for 
anything  that  a  friend  may  do  I  should  not  be  found 
wanting." 

"  Yery  good.  One  of  the  first  things  one  asks  of  a 
friend  is  to  judge  one  not  by  isolated  acts,  but  by  one's 
whole  conduct.  I  care  for  your  opinion — I  don't  know 
why." 

"  Nor  do  I,  I  confess  !  "  said  Rowland,  with  a  laugh. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  this  affair  %  "  she  continued, 
without  heeding  his  laugh. 

"  Of  your  ball  ?     Why,  it's  a  very  grand  affair." 

''  It's  horrible — that's  what  it  is  1  It's  a  mere  rabble  ! 
There  are  people  here  whom  I  never  saw  before,  people 
who  were  never  asked.  Mamma  went  about  inviting  every 
one,  asking  other  people  to  invite  any  one  they  knew,  doing 
anything  to  have  a  crowd.  I  hope  she  is  satisfied  !  It  is 
not  my  doing.  I  feel  weary,  I  feel  angry,  I  feel  like 
crying.  I  have  twenty  minds  to  escape  into  my  room  and 
lock  the  door,  and  let  mamma  go  on  with  it  as  she  can. 
By  the  way,"  she  added  in  a  moment,  without  a  visible 
reason  for  the  transition,  "  can  you  tell  me  something  to 
read  T ' 

Rowland  stared  at  the  disconnectedness  of  the  question. 

"Can  you  recommend  me  some  books?"  she  repeated. 
"  I  know  you  are  a  great  reader.     I  have  no  one  else  to 


140  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

ask.  AVe  can  buy  no  books.  We  can  make  debts  for  jewel- 
lery and  bonnets  and  ten-button  gloves,  but  we  can't  spend 
a  sou  for  ideas.  And  yet,  though  you  may  not  believe  it, 
I  like  ideas  quite  as  well." 

"  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  lend  you  some  books,"  E,owland 
said.  "  I  will  pick  some  out  to-morrow  and  send  them  to 
you. 

"  IS'o  novels,  please !  I  am  tired  of  novels.  I  can  ima- 
gine better  stories  for  myself  than  any  I  read.  Some  good 
poetry,  if  there  is  such  a  thing  nowadays,  and  some  memoirs 
and  histories  and  books  of  facts." 

"  You  shall  be  served.  Your  taste  agrees  with  my 
own." 

She  was  silent  a  moment,  looking  at  him.  Then  suddenly 
— "Tell  me  something  about  Mr.  Hudson,"  she  exclaimed. 
''  You  are  great  friends  !  " 

*'  Oh,  yes,"  said  Bowland  ;  "  we  are  great  friends." 

"  Tell  me  about  him.     Come,  begin  !  " 

"Where  shall  I  begin?     You  know  him  for  yourself." 

"  No,  I  don't  know  him  ;  I  don't  find  him  so  easy  to 
know.  Since  he  has  finished  my  bust  and  begun  to  come 
here  disinterestedly,  he  has  become  a  great  talker.  He  says 
very  fine  things  ;  but  does  he  mean  all  he  says  1 " 

"  Few  of  us  do  that." 

"  You  do,  I  imagine.  You  ought  to  know,  for  he  tells 
me  you  discovered  him."  Rowland  was  silent,  and  Christina 
continued,  "  Do  you  consider  him  very  clever  ?  " 

"  Unquestionably." 

"  His  talent  is  really  something  out  of  the  common 
way  ? " 

"  So  it  seems  to  me." 

"  In  short,  he  is  a  man  of  genius  1 " 

"  Yes,  call  it  genius." 

"  And  you  found  him  vegetating  in  a  little  village, 
and  took  him  by  the  hand  and  set  him  on  his  feet  in 
Rome  1 " 

"  Is  that  the  popular  legend  1 "  asked  Rowland. 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  be  modest.  There  was  no  great  merit 
in  it ;  there  would  have  been  none  at  least  on  my  part  in 
the  same  circumstances.  Real  geniuses  are  not  so  common, 
and  if  I  had  discovered  one  in  the  wilderness,  I  should 
have  brought  him  out  in  the  market-place  to  see  how  he 


EODEEICK  HUDSON.  141 

would  behave.  It  would  be  excessively  amusing.  You 
must  find  it  so  to  watch  Mr.  Hudson,  eh  1  Tell  me  this  : 
do  you  think  he  is  going  to  be  a  great  man — become  famous, 
have  his  life  written  and  all  that  1 " 

"  I  don't  prophesy,  but  I  have  good  hopes." 

Christina  was  silent.  She  stretched  out  her  bare  arm 
and  looked  at  it  a  moment  absently,  turning  it  so  as  to  see 
— or  almost  to  see — the  dimple  in  her  elbow.  This  was 
apparently  a  frequent  gesture  with  her ;  Rowland  had 
already  observed  it.  It  was  as  coolly  and  naturally  done 
as  if  she  had  been  alone  before  her  toilet-table.  "  So  he 
is  a  man  of  genius,"  she  suddenly  resumed.  "  Don't  you 
think  I  ought  to  be  extremely  flattered  to  have  a  man  of 
genius  perpetually  hanging  about  1  He  is  the  first  I  ever 
saw,  but  I  should  have  known  he  was  not  a  common 
mortal.  There  is  something  strange  about  him.  To  begin 
with,  he  has  no  manners.  You  may  say  that  it's  not  for 
me  to  blame  him,  for  I  have  none  myself.  That's  very 
true,  but  the  difference  is  that  I  can  have  them  when  I 
wish  to  (and  very  charming  ones  too  ;  I  will  show  you 
some  day) ;  whereas  Mr.  Hudson  will  never  have  them. 
And  yet  somehow  one  sees  he  is  a  gentleman.  He  seems 
to  have  something  urging,  driving,  pushing  him,  making 
him  restless  and  defiant.  You  see  it  in  his  eyes.  They 
are  the  finest,  by  the  way,  I  ever  saw.  When  a  person 
has  such  eyes  as  that,  you  can  forgi  v^e  him  his  bad  manners. 
I  suppose  that  is  what  they  call  the  sacred  fire." 

Rowland  made  no  answer  except  to  ask  her  in  a  moment 
if  she  would  have  another  roll.  She  merely  shook  her 
head  and  went  on-^ 

"Tell  me  how  you  found  him.  Where  was  he — how 
was  he  ?  " 

"  He  was  in  a  place  called  Northampton.  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  it  ?  He  was  studying  law — but  not  learning 
it." 

"  It  appears  it  was  something  horrible,  eh  1 " 

"  Something  horrible  1 " 

"  This  little  village.  No  society,  no  pleasures,  no  beauty, 
no  life." 

"  You  have  received  a  false  impression.  Northampton 
is  not  so  gay  as  Rome,  but  Roderick  had  some  charming 
friends." 


142  EODERICK  HUDSON. 

*'  Tell  me  about  them.     Who  were  they  1  " 

"  Well,  there  was  my  cousin,  through  whom  I  made  his 
acquaintance-r-a  delightful  woman." 

"  Young — pretty  1 " 

"  Yes,  a  good  deal  of  both.     And  very  clever." 

"  Did  he  make  love  to  her  'i  " 

♦'  Not  in  the  least." 

''  Well,  who  else  1 " 

"  He  lived  with  his  mother.  She  is  the  best  of 
women." 

"Ah,  yes,  I  know  all  that  one's  mother  is.  But  she 
does  not  count  as  society.     And  who  else  1  " 

Kowland  hesitated.  He  wondered  whether  Christina's 
insistence  were  the  result  of  a  general  interest  in  Roderick's 
antecedents  or  of  a  particular  suspicion.  He  looked  at 
her ;  she  was  looking  at  him  a  little  askance,  waiting  for 
his  answer.  As  Roderick  had  said  nothing  about  his 
engagement  to  the  Cavaliere,  it  was  probable  that  with 
this  beautiful  girl  he  had  not  been  more  explicit.  And 
yet  the  thing  was  announced,  it  was  public ;  that  other 
girl  was  happy  in  it,  proud  of  it.  Rowland  felt  a  kind  of 
dumb  anger  rising  in  his  heart.  He  deliberated  a  moment 
intently. 

'^  What  are  you  frowning  at  1 "  Christina  asked. 

"  There  was  another  person,"  he  answered,  "  the  most 
important  of  all — the  young  girl  to  whom  he  is  engaged." 

Christina  stared  a  moment,  raising  her  eyebrows.  "  Ah, 
Mr.  Hudson  is  engaged  t  "  she  said,  very  simply.  "  Is  she 
pretty  1 " 

"  She  is  not  called  a  beauty."  Rowland  meant  to  practise 
great  brevity,  but  in  a  moment  he  added,  "  I  have  seen 
beauties  however  who  pleased  me  less." 

"  Ah,  she  pleases  you  too  1     Why  don't  they  marry  1 " 

"  Roderick  is  waiting  till  he  can  afford  to  marry." 

Christina  slowly  put  out  her  arm  again  and  looked  at 
the  dimple  in  her  elbow.  "  Ah,  he's  engaged  1 "  she  repeated 
in  the  same  tone.     "  He  never  told  me." 

Rowland  perceived  at  this  moment  that  the  people  about 
them  were  beginning  to  return  to  the  dancing-room,  and 
immediately  afterwards  he  saw  Roderick  making  his  way 
towards  themselves.  Roderick  presented  himself  before 
Miss  Light. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  143 

"  I  don't  claim  that  you  have  promised  me  the  cotillon/' 
he  said,  "  but  I  consider  that  you  have  given  me  hopes 
which  warrant  the  confidence  that  you  will  dance  with 
me." 

Christina  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  Certainly  I  have 
made  no  promises,"  she  said.  "  It  seemed  to  me  that  as 
the  daughter  of  the  house,  I  should  keep  myself  free,  and 
let  it  depend  on  circumstances." 

"  I  beseech  you  to  dance  with  me  !  "  said  Koderick,  with 
vehemence. 

Christina  rose  and  began  to  laugh.  ''  You  say  that  very 
well,  but  the  Italians  do  it  better." 

This  assertion  seemed  likely  to  be  put  to  the  proof. 
Mrs.  Light  hastily  approached,  leading,  rather  than  led 
by,  a  tall  slim  young  man,  of  an  unmistakably  Southern 
physiognomy.  "My  precious  love,''  she  cried,  "what  a 
place  to  hide  in  !  We  have  been  looking  for  you  for 
twenty  minutes;  I  have  chosen  a  cavalier  for  you — and 
chosen  well ! " 

The  young  man  disengaged  himself,  made  a  ceremonious 
bow,  joined  his  two  hands  and  murmured  with  an  ecstatic 
smile,  "May  I  venture  to  hope,  dear  signorina,  for  the 
honour  of  your  hand  1  " 

"  Of  course  you  may  !  "  said  Mrs.  Light.  "  The  honour 
is  for  us  !  " 

Christina  hesitated  but  for  a  moment,  then  swept  the 
young  man  a  curtsey  as  profound  as  his  own  salutation. 
"You  are  very  kind,  but  you  are  too  late.  I  have  just 
accepted !  " 

"  Ah,  my  own  darling  !  "  murmured — almost  moaned — 
Mrs.  Light. 

Christina  and  Hoderick  exchanged  a  single  glance — 
a  glance  brilliant  on  each  side.  She  passed  her  hand 
into  his  arm ;  he  tossed  his  clustering  locks  and  led  her 
away. 

A  short  time  afterwards  Rowland  saw  the  young  man 
she  had  rejected  leaning  against  a  doorway.  He  was  ugly, 
but  what  is  called  distinguished-looking.  He  had  a  heavy 
black  eye,  a  sallow  complexion,  a  long  thin  neck  ;  his  hair 
was  cropped  en  hrosse.  He  looked  very  young,  yet  ex- 
tremely bored.  He  was  staring  at  the  ceiling  and  stroking 
an  imperceptib'^e  moustache.    Rowland  espied  the  Cavaliere 


144  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Giacosa   hard  by,  and  having  joined  him  asked   him  the 
young  man's  name. 

"  Oh,"    said   the  Cavaliere,  "  he  is  a  jjezzo   grosso  !     A 
Neapolitan.     Prince  Casamassima." 


XI. 

One  day  on  entering  Eoderick's  lodging  (not  the  modest 
rooms  on  the  Pdpetta  which  he  had  first  occuj^ied,  but 
a  much  more  sumptuous  apartment  on  the  Corso),  Rowland 
found  a  letter  on  the  table  addressed  to  himself.  It  was 
from  Koderick,  and  consisted  of  but  three  lines.  "  I  am 
gone  to  Frascati — for  meditation.  If  I  am  not  at  home  on 
Friday  you  had  better  join  me."  On  Friday  he  was  still 
absent,  and  Ptowland  went  out  to  Frascati.  Here  he  found 
his  friend  living  at  the  inn  and  spending  his  days  accord- 
ing to  his  own  account  lying  under  the  trees  of  the  Yilla 
Mondragone  and  reading  Ariosto.  He  was  in  a  sombre 
mood  ;  "  meditation  "  seemed  not  to  have  been  fruitful. 
Nothing  especially  pertinent  to  our  narrative  had  passed 
between  the  two  young  men  since  Mrs.  Light's  ball  save 
a  fe:sv  words  bearing  on  an  incident  of  that  entertainment. 
Rowland  informed  Roderick  the  next  day  that  he  had  told 
Miss  Light  of  his  engagement.  "  I  don  t  know  whether 
you  will  thank  me,"  he  had  said,  "  but  it  is  my  duty 
to  let  you  know  it.  Miss  Light  perhaps  has  already 
done  so." 

Roderick  looked  at  him  a  moment  intently,  with  his 
colour  slowly  rising.  "  Why  should  I  not  thank  you  ?  " 
he  asked.     "  I  am  not  ashamed  of  my  engagement." 

"  As  you  had  not  spoken  of  it  yourself  I  thought  you 
might  have  a  reason  for  not  having  it  known." 

"  A  man  doesn't  gossip  about  such  a  matter  with 
strangers,"  Roderick  rejoined,  with  the  ring  of  irritation 
in  his  voice. 

"  "With  strangers — no  !  "  said  Rowland  smiling. 

Roderick   continued   his   work;    but   after   a   moment, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  145 

turning  round  with  a  frown — "  If  you  supposed  I  had  a 
reason  for  being  silent,  pray  why  should  you  have 
spoken  1 " 

"  I  did  not  speak  idly,  my  dear  Roderick.  I  weighed 
the  matter  before  I  spoke,  and  promised  myself  to  let  you 
know  immediately  afterwards.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
Miss  Light  had  better  know  that  your  affections  are 
pledged." 

"  The  Cavaliere  then  has  put  it  into  your  head  that  I 
am  making  love  to  her  'i  " 

"  No  j  in  that  case  I  should  not  have  spoken  to  her 
first." 

"  Do  you  mean,  then,  that  she  is  making  love  to  me  ?  " 

"  This  is  what  I  mean,"  said  Rowland  after  a  pause. 
"  That  girl  finds  you  interesting  and  she  is  pleased,  even 
though  she  may  feign  indifference,  at  your  finding  her  so. 
I  said  to  myself  that  it  might  save  her  some  sentimental 
disappointment  to  know  without  delay  that  you  are  not  at 
liberty  to  become  indefinitely  interested  in  other  women." 

"  You  seem  to  have  taken  the  measure  of  my  liberty 
with  extraordinary  minuteness  !  "  cried  Roderick. 

"You  must  do  me  justice.  I  am  the  cause  of  your 
separation  from  Miss  Garland,  the  cause  of  your  being 
exposed  to  temptations  which  she  hardly  even  suspects. 
How  could  I  ever  meet  her  again,"  Rowland  demanded 
with  much  warmth  of  tone,  "if  at  the  end  of  it  all  she 
should  be  unhappy  1  " 

"  I  had  no  idea  that  she  had  made  such  an  impression 
on  you  !  You  are  too  zealous.  I  take  it  she  didn't  charge 
you  to  look  after  her  interests." 

"  If  anything  happens  to  you  I  am  accountable.  You 
must  understand  that." 

"  That's  a  view  of  the  situation  I  can't  accept ;  in  your 
own  interest  no  less  than  in  mine  !  It  can  only  make  us 
both  very  uncomfortable.  I  know  all  I  owe  you  ;  I  feel 
it ;  you  know  that  !  But  I  am  not  a  small  boy  nor  an 
amiable  simpleton  any  longer,  and  whatever  I  do  I  do 
with  my  eyes  open.  When  I  do  well  the  merit's  my  own ; 
if  I  do  ill  the  fault's  my  own  !  The  idea  that  I  make  you 
ner/ous  is  ridiculous.  Dedicate  your  nerves  to  some 
betier  cause  and  believe  that  if  Miss  Garland  and  I  have 
a  quarrel  we  shall  settle  it  between  ourselves." 

K 


146  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Eowland  had  found  himself  wondering  shortly  before 
whether  possibly  his  brilliant  young  friend  were  without 
a  conscience  ;  now^t  dimly  occuried  to  him  that  he  was 
without  a  heart,  l^owland  as  we  have  already  intimated 
was  a  man  with  a  moral  passion,: and  no  small  part  of  it 
had  gone  forth  into  this  adventure.  There  had  been  from 
the  tirst  no  protestations  of  friendship  on  either  side,  but 
Kowland  had  implicitly  offered  everything  that  belongs  to 
friendship,  and  Roderick  had  apparently  as  deliberately 
accepted  it.  Rowland  indeed  had  taken  an  exquisite 
satisfaction  in  his  companion's  easy  inexpressive  assent  to 
his  interest  in  him.  "  Here  is  an  uncommonly  fine  thing," 
he  said  to  himself  ;  "  a  nature  unconsciously  grateful,  a 
man  in  whom  friendship  does  the  thing  that  love  alone 
generally  has  the  credit  of — knocks  the  bottom  out  of 
jjride  !  "  His  reflective  judgment  of  Roderick,  as  time 
went  on,  had  indulged  in  a  great  many  irrepressible 
vagaries ;  but  his  affection,  his  sense  of  something  in  his 
companion's  whole  personality  that  appealed  to  his 
tenderness  and  charmed  his  imagination,  had  never  for 
an  instant  faltered.  He  listened  to  Roderick's  last 
words,  and  then  he  smiled  as  he  rarely  smiled — with 
bitterness. 

"  1  don't  at  all  like  your  telling  me  I  am  too  zealous," 
he  said.  "  If  I  had  not  been  zealous  I  should  never  have 
cared  a  fig  for  you  !  " 

Roderick  flushed  deeply  and  thrust  his  modelling  tool 
up  to  the  handle  into  the  clay.  "  Say  it  outright !  You 
have  been  a  great  fool  to  believe  in  me." 

"  I  don't  desire  to  say  it,  and  you  don't  honestly  believe 
I  do  !  "  said  Rowland.  "  It  seems  to  me  I  am  really  very 
good-natured  even  to  reply  to  such  nonsense." 

[Roderick  sat  down,  crossed  his  arms  and  fixed  his  eyes 
on  the  floor.  Rowland  looked  at  him  for  some  moments  ; 
it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  never  so  clearly  perceived 
his  strangely  commingled  character — his  strength  and  his 
weakness,  his  picturesque  personal  attractiveness  and  his 
urgent  egotism,  his  exalted  ardour  and  his  puerile  petu- 
lance.\  It  would  have  made  him  almost  sick  however  to 
think^  that  on  the  whole  Roderick  was  not  a  generous 
fellow,  and  he  was  so  far  from  having  ceased  to  believe  in 
hiin  that  he  felt  iust  now  more  than  ever  that  all  this  was 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  147 

but  the  painful  complexity  of  genius.  Rowland,  who  had 
not  a  grain  of  genius  either  to  make  one  say  he  was  an 
interested  reasoner  or  to  enable  one  to  feel  that  he  could 
afford  a  dangerous  theory  or  two,  adhered  to  his  conviction 
of  the  essential  salubrity  of  genius.  Suddenly  he  felt  an 
irresistible  pity  for  his  companion ;  it  seemed  to  him  that 
his  beautiful  faculty  of  production  was  a  double-edged 
instrument,  susceptible  of  being  dealt  in  back-handed 
blows  at  its  possessor.  Genius  was  priceless,  inspired, 
divine  ;  but  it  was  also  at  its  hours  capricious,  sinister, 
cruel ;  and  men  of  genius  accordingly  were  alternately 
very  enviable  and  very  helpless,  l  It  was  not  the  first  time 
he  had  had  a  sense  of  Roderick's  standing  passive  in  the 
clutch  of  his  tepaperament.  It  had  shaken  him  as  yet  but 
with  a  half  good-humoured  wantonness  ;  but  henceforth 
possibly  it  meant  to  handle  him  more  roughly.  These 
were  not  times  therefore  for  a  friend  to  have  a  short 
patience. 

"When  you  err  you  say  the  fault's  your  own,"  he  said 
at  last.  "  It  is  because  your  faults  are  your  o^vn  that  I 
heed  them." 

Rowland's  voice,  when  he  spoke  with  feeling,  had  an 
extraordinary  amenity.  Roderick  sat  staring  a  moment 
longer  at  the  floor,  then  he  sprang  up  and  laid  his  hand 
affectionately  on  his  friend's  shoulder.  "  You  are  the  best 
man  in  the  world,"  he  said,  "  and  I  am  a  vile  brute. 
Only,"  he  added  in  a  moment,  "  you  donH  understand  me  /  " 
And  he  looked  at  him  with  eyes  of  such  pure  expressive- 
ness that  one  might  have  said  (and  Rowland  did  almost 
say  so  himself)  that  it  was  the  fault  of  one's  own  grossness 
if  one  failed  to  read  to  the  bottom  of  that  beautiful  soul. 

Rowland  smiled  sadly.     "  AVhat  is  it  now  ?     Explain." 

*'  Oh,  I  can't  explain  !  "  cried  Roderick  impatiently, 
returning  to  his  work.  "  I  have  only  one  way  of  express- 
ing my  deepest  feelings — it's  this."  And  he  swung  his 
tool.  He  stood  looking  at  the  half  wrought  clay  for  a 
moment  and  then  flung  the  instrument  down.  "  And 
even  this  half  the  time  plays  me  false  !  " 

Rowland  felt  that  his  irritation  had  not  subsided,  and 
he  himself  had  no  taste  for  saying  disagreeable  things. 
Nevertheless  he  saw  no  sufficient  reason  to  forbear 
uttering  the  words  he    had    had    on    his  conscience  from 

K  2 


148  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  beginning.  "  We  must  do  what  we  can  and  be  thank- 
ful," he  said.  "  And  let  me  assi;re  you  of  this — that  it 
won't  help  you  to  become  entangled  witli  Miss  Light." 

-  Koderick  pressed  his  hand  to  his  forehead  with  vehemence 
and  then  shook  it  in  the  air  despairingly ;  a  gesture  that 
had  become  frequent  with  him  since  he  came  to  Italy.  "  No, 
no,  it's  no  use ;  you  don't  understand  me  !  But  I  don't 
blame  you.      You  can't  !  " 

*' You  think  it  will  help  you  then?"  said  Rowland 
wondering. 

*'  I  think  that  when  you  expect  a  man  to  produce  beauti- 
ful and  wonderful  works  of  art  you  ought  to  allow  him,  a 
certain  freedom  of  action,  you  ought  to  give  him  a  long 
rope,  you  ought  to  let  him  follow  his  fancy  and  look  for 
his  material  wherever  he  thinks  he  may  find  it  1  A  mother 
can't  nurse  her  child  unless  she  follows  a  certain  diet ;  an 
artist  can'c  bring  his  visions  to  maturity  unless  he  has 
a  cei-tain  experience.  You  demand  of  us  to  be  imaginative, 
and  you  deny  u.^  the  things  that  feed  the  imagination.  In 
labour  we  must  be  as  passionate  as  the  inspired  sibyl ;  in  life 
we  must  be  mere  machines.  It  won't  do  !  When  you  have 
got  an  artist  to  deal  with,  you  must  take  him  as  he  is, 
good  and  bad  together.  I  don't  say  they  are  pleasant 
fellows  to  know,  or  easy  fellows  to  live  with  ;  I  don't  say 
they  satisfy  themselves  any  better  than  other  people.  I  only 
>ay  that  if  you  want  them  to  produce  you  must  let  them 
conceive.  If  you  want  a  bird  to  sing,  you  must  not  cover 
up  its  cage.  Shoot  them,  the  poor  devils,  drown  them, 
exterminate  them,  if  you  will,  in  the  interest  of  public 
morality ;  it  may  be  morality  would  gain — I  dare  say  it 
would  !  But  if  you  suffer  them  to  live,  let  them  live  on 
their  own  terms  and  according  to  their  own  inexorable 
needs !  " 

Rowland  burst  out  laughing.  "  I  have  no  wish  whatever 
either  to  shoot  you  or  to  drown  you  !  "  he  said.  "  Why 
defend  yourself  with  such  very  big  guns  against  a  warning 
offered  you  altogether  in  the  interest  of  your  freest  develop- 
ment %  Do  you  really  mean  that  you  have  an  inexorable 
need  of  embarking  on  a  flirtation  with  Miss  Light? — a 
flirtation  as  to  the  felicity  of  which  there  may  be  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  but  which  cannot  at  best,  under  the 
circumstances,  be    called    innocent.      Your    last  summer's 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  149 

adventures  were  more  so!  As  for  the  terms  on  which 
you  are  to  live,  I  had  an  idea  you  had  arranged  them 
otherwise !  " 

"  I  have  arranged  nothing — thank  God  !  I  don't  pretend 
to  arrange.  I  am  young  and  ardent  and  inquisitive,  and 
I  am  preoccupied  with  that  girl.  That's  enough.  I  shall 
go  as  far  as  the  fancy  leads  me.  I  am  not  afraid.  Your 
genuine  artist  may  be  sometimes  half  a  madman,  but  he's 
not  acoward  !  " 

"  I  see ;  it's  a  speculation.  But  suppose  that  in  your 
speculation  you  should  come  to  grief  artistically  as  well  as 
sentimentally  1 " 

"  Come  what  come  will !  If  I'm  to  fizzle  out,  the  sooner 
I  know  it  the  better.  Sometimes  I  half  suspect  it.  But 
let  me  at  least  go  out  and  reconnoitre  for  the  enemy,  and 
not  sit  here  waiting  for  him,  cudgelling  my  brains  for  ideas 
that  won't  come  !  " 

Do  what  he  would,  Rowland  could  not  think  of 
Eoderick's  theory  of  unlimited  experimentation,  especially 
as  applied  in  the  case  under  discussion,  as  anything  but  a 
pernicious  illusion.  But  he  saw  it  was  vain  to  discuss  the 
matter,  for  inclination  was  powerfully  on  Roderick's  side. 
He  laid  his  hand  on  the  young  man's  shoulder,  looked  at 
him  a  moment  with  troubled  eyes,  then  shook  his  head 
mournfully  and  turned  away. 

"I  can't  work  any  more,"  said  Roderick.  "You  have 
upset  me  !  I'll  go  and  stroll  on  the  Pincian."  And  he 
tossed  aside  his  working-jacket  and  prepared  himself  for 
the  street.  As  he  was  arranging  his  cravat  before  the 
glass,  something  occurred  to  him  which  made  him  thought- 
ful. He  stopped  a  few  moments  afterwards  as  they  were 
going  out,  with  his  hand  on  the  door-knob.  "  You  did 
from  your  own  point  of  view  an  indiscreet  thing,"  he  said, 
"  to  tell  Miss  Light  of  my  engagement." 

Rowland  looked  at  him  with  a  glance  which  was  partly 
an  interrogation,  but  partly  also  an  admission. 

"If  she's  the  coquette  you  say,"  Roderick  added,  "you 
have  given  her  a  reason  the  more  !  " 

"  And  that's  the  girl  you  propose  to  devote  yourself  to  ?  " 
cried  Rowland. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  say  it,  mind  !  I  only  say  that  she's  the  most 
interesting  creature  in  the  world  !      The  next    time  you 


156  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

mean  to  render  me  a  service  pray  give  me  notice  before- 
hand 1  " 

It  was  perfectly  characteristic  of  Roderick  that  a  fort- 
night later  he  should  have  let  his  friend  know  that  he 
depended  upon  him  for  society  at  Frascati  as  freely  as  if 
no  irritating  topic  had  ever  been  discussed  between  them. 
Rowland  thought  him  generous,  and  he  had  at  any  rate 
a  liberal  faculty  of  forgetting  that  he  had  given  you  any 
reason  to  be  displeased  with  him.  It  was  equally  charac- 
teristic of  Rowland  that  he  complied  with  his  friend's 
summons  without  a  moment's  hesitation.  His  cousin 
Cecilia  had  once  told  him  that  he  was  the  dupe  of  his 
perverse  benevolence.  She  put  the  case  with  too  little 
favour,  or  too  much,  as  the  reader  chooses  ;  it  is  certain 
at  lea^t  that  (he  had  a  constitutional  tendency  to  magna- 
nimous interpretations^  Nothing  happened  however  to 
sugrsrest  to  him  that  Ke  was  deluded  in  thinking  that 
Roderick's  secondary  impulses  were  wiser  than  his  primary 
ones,  and  that  the  rounded  total  of  his  nature  had  a  har- 
mony perfectly  attuned  to  the  most  amiable  of  its  brilliant 
parts.  Roderick's  humour,  for  the  time,  was  pitched  in 
a  minor  key  ;  he  was  lazy,  listless,  and  melancholy,  but 
he  had  never  been  so  softly  submissive.  Winter  had 
begun  by  the  calendar,  but  the  weather  was  divinely 
mild,  and  the  two  young  men  took  long  slow  strolls  on 
the  hills  and  lounged  away  the  mornings  in  the  villas.  The 
villas  at  Frascati  are  delicious  places  and  replete  with 
romantic  suggestiveness.  Roderick  as  he  had  said  was 
meditating,  and  if  a  masterpiece  was  to  come  of  his  medita- 
tions Rowland  was  perfectly  willing  to  bear  him  company 
and  coax  it  along.  But  Roderick  let  him  know  from  the 
first  that  he  was  in  a  miserably  sterile  mood,  and,  cudgel 
his  brains  as  he  would,  could  think  of  nothing  that  would 
serve  for  the  statue  he  was  to  make  for  Mr.  Leavenworth. 

"  It  is  worse  out  here  than  in  Rome,"  he  said,  "  for  here 
I  am  face  to  face  with  the  dead  blank  of  my  mind  !  There 
I  couldn't  think  of  anything  either,  but  there  I  found 
things  to  make  me  forget  that  I  needed  to  think  !  "  This 
was  as  frank  an  allusion  to  Christina  Light  as  could  have 
been  expected  under  the  circumstances  ;  it  seemed  indeed 
to  Rowland  surprisingly  frank — a  pregnant  example  of  his 
companion's    strangely    irresponsible    way    of    looking    at 


xlODERICK  HUDSON.  151 

harmful  facts.  Roderick  was  sileut  sometimes  for  hours, 
with  a  puzzled  look  on  his  face  and  a  constant  fold  between 
his  even  eyebrows  ;  at  other  times  ho  talked  unceasingly, 
with  a  sort  of  impartial  contemplative  drawl.  Rowland  was 
half  a  dozen  times  on  the  point  of  asking  him  what  was 
the  matter  with  him;  he  was  afraid  he  was  going  to  be 
ill.  Roderick  had  taken  a  great  fancy  to  the  Villa  Mondra- 
gone  and  used  to  declaim  fantastic  compliments  to  it  as 
they  strolled  in  the  winter  sunshine  on  the  great  terrace 
which  looks  towards  Tivoli  and  the  iridescent  Sabine  moun- 
tains. He  carried  his  volume  of  Ariosto  in  his  pocket,  and 
took  it  out  every  now  and  then  to  spout  half  a  dozen  stanzas 
to  his  companion.  He  was  as  a  general  thing  very  little  of 
a.  reader  ;  but  at  intervals  he  would  take  a  fancy  to  one  of 
the  classics  and  peruse  it  for  a  month  in  disjointed  scraps. 
He  had  picked  up  Italian  without  study,  and  had  a  wonder- 
fully proper  accent.,  though  in  reading  aloud  he  ruined  the 
sense  of  half  the  lines  he  rolled  olf  so  sonorously.  Rowland, 
who  pronounced  badly  but  understood  everything,  once  said 
to  him  that  Ariosto  was  not  the  poet  for  a  man  of  his  craft ; 
a  sculptor  should  make  a  companion  of  Dante.  So  he  lent 
him  the  Inferno,  which  he  had  brought  with  him,  and 
advised  him  to  look  into  it.  Roderick  took  it  with  some 
eagerness  ;  perhaps  it  would  brighten  his  wits.  He  re- 
turned it  the  next  day  with  disgust ;  he  had  found  it 
intolerably  depressing. 

"  A  sculptor  should  model  as  Dante  writes — you  are 
right  there, '  he  said.  "  But  when  his  genius  is  in  eclipse 
Dame  is  a  dreadfully  smoky  lamp.  By  what  perversity  of 
fate,"  he  went  on,  "  has  it  come  about  that  I  am  a  sculptor 
at  all  1  A  sculptor  is  such  a  confoundedly  special  genius  ; 
there  are  so  few  subjects  he  can  treat,  so  few  things  in 
life  that  bear  upon  his  work,  so  few  moods  in  which  he 
himself  is  inclined  to  it."  (It  may  be  noted  that  Rowland 
had. heard  him  a  dozen  times  atlirm  the  flat  reverse  of  all 
this,)  "  If  I  had  only  been  a  painter — a  little,  quiet,  docile, 
matter-of-fact  painter  like  our  friend  Singleton — I  should 
only  have  to  open  my  Ariosto  here  to  find  a  subject,  to 
iind  colour  and  attitudes,  stuffs  and  composition  ;  I  should 
only  have  to  look  up  from  the  page  at  that  mouldy  old 
fountain  against  the  blue  sky,  at  that  cypress  alley  wan- 
dering away  like  a  procession  of  priests  in  couples,  at  the 


152  KODEKICK  IIL'DSON. 

crags  and  hollows  of  the  Sabine  hills,  to  find  my  picture 
begun  1  Best  of  all  would  it  be  to  be  Ariosto  himself  or 
one  of  his  brotherhood.  Then  everything  in  nature  would 
give  you  a  hint,  and  every  form  of  beauty  be  part  of  your 
stock.  You  wouldn't  have  to  look  at  things  only  to  say — 
with  tears  of  rage  half  the  time — ■'  Oh,  yes,  it's  wonderfully 
pretty,  but  what  the  devil  can  I  do  with  it  ] '  But  a  sculp- 
tor now  !  That's  a  pretty  trade  for  a  fellow  who  has  got 
his  living  to  make,  and  yet  is  so  damnably  constituted  that 
he  can't  work  to  order,  and  considers  that,  aesthetically,  clock 
ornaments  don't  pay  !  You  can't  model  the  serge-coated 
cypresses,  nor  those  mouldering  old  Tritons,  and  all  the 
sunny  sadness  of  that  dried-up  fountain  ;  you  can't  pii: 
the  light  into  marble— the  lovely  caressing  consenting 
Italian  light  that  you  get  so  much  of  for  nothing !  Say 
that  a  dozen  times  in  his  life  a  man  has  a  completely 
plastic  vision — a  vision  in  which  the  imagination  recognises 
a  subject  and  the  subject  reacts  on  the  imagination.  It 
is  a  remunerative  rate  of  work,  and  the  intervals  are 
comfortable  !  " 

One  morning  as  the  two  young  men  were  lounging  on 
the  sun-warmed  grass  at  the  foot  of  one  of  the  slanting 
pines  of  the  Villa  Mondragone,  Roderick  delivered  him.-eli 
of  a  tissue  of  lugubrious  speculations  as  to  the  possible 
mischances  of  one's  genius.  "  What  if  the  watch  should 
run  down,"  he  asked,  "and  you  should  lose  the  key? 
What  if  you  should  wake  up  some  morning  and  find  it 
stopped — inexorably,  appallingly  stopped?  Such  things 
have  been,  and  the  poor  devils  to  whom  they  hajipened 
have  had  to  grin  and  bear  it.  The  whole  matter  of  genius 
is  a  mystery.  It  bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  we  know 
nothing  of  its  mechanism.  If  it  gets  out  of  order  we 
can't  mend  it ;  if  it  breaks  down  altogether  we  can  t  set  it 
going  again.  We  must  let  it  choose  its  own  pace  and  hold 
our  breath  lest  it  should  lose  its  balance.  It's  dealt  out 
in  dilierent  doses,  in  big  cups  and  little,  and  when  you 
have  consumed  your  portion  it's  as  naif  to  ask  for  more 
as  it  was  for  Oliver  Twist  to  ask  for  more  porridge. 
Lucky  for  you  if  you  have  got  one  of  the  big  cups ;  we 
drink  them  down  in  the  dark,  and  we  can't  tell  their  size 
until  we  tip  them  up  and  hear  the  last  gurgle.  Those  of 
some    men  last  for  life;    those  of  others  for  a  couple  of 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  153 

years.  Come,  what  are  you  grinning  at  ?  "  he  went  on. 
"  Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  an  artist  who  has  set 
out  on  his  journey  on  a  high-stepping  horse  to  find  himself 
all  of  a  sudden  dismounted  and  invited  to  go  his  way  on 
foot.  You  can  number  them  by  the  thousand — the  people 
of  two  or  three  successes  ;  the  poor  fellows  whose  candle 
burnt  out  in  a  night.  Some  of  them  groped  their  way 
along  without  it,  some  of  them  gave  themselves  up  for 
blind  and  sat  down  by  the  wayside  to  beg.  Who  shall 
say  that  I  am  not  one  of  these  1  Who  shall  assure  me 
that  my  credit  is  for  an  unlimited  sum  1  Nothing  proves 
it  and  I  never  claimed  it ;  or  if  I  did,  I  did  so  in  the  mere 
boyish  joy  of  shaking  off  the  dust  of  Northampton!  If 
you  believed  so,  my  dear  fellow,  you  did  so  at  your  own 
risk  !  What  am  I,  what  are  the  best  of  us,  but  an  experi- 
ment 1  [po  I  succeed — do  I  fail  1  It  doesn't  depend  on 
me  !  I  am  prepared  for  failure.  It  won't  be  a  disappoint- 
ment, simply  because  I  sha'n't  survive  it.  The  end  of  my 
work  shall  be  tho  end  of  my  lifej  When  I  have  played 
my  last  card,  I  shall  cease  to  care  Tor  the  game.  I  am  not 
making  vulgar  threats  of  suicide  ;  for  destiny,  I  trust, 
won't  add  insult  to  injury  by  putting  me  to  that  abomin- 
able trouble.  But  I  have  a  conviction  that  if  the  hour 
strikes  here,"  and  he  tapped  his  forehead,  "  I  shall  dis- 
appear, dissolve,  be  carried  off  in  a  cloud  !  For  the  past 
ten  days  I  have  had  the  vision  of  some  such  fate  perpetu- 
ally swimming  before  my  eyes.  My  mind  is  like  a  dead 
calm  in  the  tropics,  and  my  imagination  as  motionless  as 
the  phantom  ship  in  the  '  Ancient  Mariner ' !  " 

Rowland  listened  to  this  fine  monologue-,  as  he  often  had 
occasion  to  listen  tolRoderick's  flights  of  eloquence,  with 
a  number  of  mental  restrictions.  Both  in  gravity  and  in 
gaiety  he  said  more  than  he  meant,  and  you  did  him 
simple  justice  if  you  privately  concluded  that  neither  the 
glow  of  purpose  nor  the  chill  of  despair  was  of  so  intense 
a  character  as  his  copiousness  of  illustration  implied.'  The 
moods  of  an  artist,  his  exultations  and  depressions,  Row- 
land had  often  said  to  himself,  were  like  the  pen-flourishes 
a  writing  master  makes  in  the  air  when  he  begins  to  set 
his  copy.  He  may  bespatter  you  with  ink,  he  may  hit  you 
in  the  eye,  but  he  writes  a  magnificent  hand.  It  was 
nevertheless   true   that    at   present    poor   Roderick   gave 


154  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

unprecedented  tokens  of  moral  stagnation,  and  as  for 
genius  being  held  by  the  precarious  tenure  he  had  sketched. 
Kowland  was  at  a  loss  to  see  where  he  could  borrow  the 
authority  to  contradict  him.  He  sighed  to  himself  and 
wished  that  his  companion  had  a  tritle  more  of  little  Sam 
Singleton's  vulgar  steadiness.  But  then,  was  Sam  Single- 
ton a  man  of  genius?  He  answered  that  such  refiecti«;us 
seemed  to  him  unprofitable,  not  to  say  morbid  ;  that  thf- 
proof  of  the  pudding  was  in  the  eating ;  that  he  did  not 
know  about  bringing  a  dead  genius  back  to  life  again,  but 
that  he  was  satisfied  that  vigorous  eflort  was  a  cure  for  a 
great  many  ills  that  seemed  far  gone.  "  Don't  bother  about 
your  mood,"  he  said,  "  and  don't  believe  there  is  any  calm 
so  dead  that  your  own  lungs  can't  rufiie  it  with  a  breeze. 
If  you  have  work  to  do,  don't  wait  to  feel  like  it ;  set  to 
work  and  you  will  feel  like  it." 

"  Set  to  work  and  produce  abortions  !  "  cried  Roderick 
with  ire.  "  Preach  that  to  others.  Production  with  me 
must  be  either  pleasure  or  nothing.  As  I  said  just  now, 
I  must  either  stay  in  the  saddle  or  not  go  at  all.  I  won't 
do  second-rate  work ;  I  can't  if  I  would.  I  have  no 
cleverness  apart  from  inspiration.  I  am  not  a  Gloriani  ! 
You  are  right,"  he  added  after  a  while  ;  "this  is  unprofit- 
able talk,  and  it  makes  my  head  ache.  I  shall  take  a  nap 
and  see  if  I  can  dream  of  a  bright  idea  or  two." 


XII, 


He  turned  his  face  upward  to  the  parasol  of  the  great 
pine,  closed  his  eyes,  and  in  a  short  time  forgot  his  sombre 
fancies.  January  though  it  was,  the  mild  stillness  seemed 
to  vibrate  with  faint  midsummer  sounds.  Rowland  sat 
listening  to  them  and  w^i><hing  that  for  the  sake  of  their 
common  comfort  Roderick's  temper  had  been  graced  with 
a  certain  absent  ductility.  He  was  brilliant,  but  was  he, 
like  many  brilliant  things,  brittle  1  Suddenly,  to  his 
musing   sense,  the    soft  atmospheric  hum  was  overscortd 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  155 

with  distincter  sounds.  He  heard  voices  beyond  a  mass 
of  shrubbery,  at  the  turn  of  a  neighbouring  path.  In  a 
moment  one  of  them  began  to  seem  familiar,  and  an 
instant  hiter  a  large  white  poodle  emerged  into  view.  He 
was  slowly  followed  by  his  mistress.  Miss  Light  paused 
a  moment  on  seeing  Kowland  and  his  companion ;  but 
though  the  former  perceived  that  he  was  recognised  she 
gave  no  greeting.  Presently  she  walked  directly  towards 
him.  He  rose  and  was  on  the  point  of  waking  Roderick, 
but  she  laid  her  finger  on  her  lips  and  motioned  him  to 
forbear.  She  stood  a  moment  looking  at  Ptoderick's 
handsome  slumber.  ,, 

"  What  delicious  oblivion  !  "  she  said.  "  Happy  man  ! 
Stenterello  " — and  she  pointed  to  his  face — "  wake  him 
up  !  " 

The  poodle  extended  a  long  pink  tongue  and  began  to 
lick  Roderick's  cheek. 

"  Why,"  asked  Rowland,  "  if  he  is  happy  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  want  companions  in  misery  !  Besides,  I  want  to 
show  off  my  dog."  Roderick  roused  himself,  sat  up  and 
stared.  By  this  time  Mrs.  Light  had  approached,  walking 
with  a  gentleman  on  each  side  of  her.  One  of  these  was 
the  Cavaliere  Giacosa ;  the  other  was  Prince  Casamassima. 
"  I  should  have  liked  to  lie  down  on  the  grass  and  go 
to  sleep,"  Christina  added.  "  But  it  would  have  been 
unheard  of.^' 

"  Oh,  not  quite,"  said  the  Prince,  in  English,  in  a  tone 
of  great  precision.  ''  There  was  already  a  Sleeping  Beauty 
in  the  Wood  !  " 

"Charming!"  cried  Mrs.  Light.  "Do  you  hear  that, 
my  dear  ] " 

"  When  the  Prince  says  a  brilliant  thing  it  would  be 
a  pity  to  lose  it,"  said  the  young  girl.  "  Your  servant, 
sir  !  "  And  she  smiled  at  him  wi'th  a  grace  that  might 
h  :ve  reassured  him  if  he  had  thought  her  compliment 
ambiguous. 

Roderick  meanwhile  had  risen  to  his  feet,  and  Mrs. 
Light  began  to  exclaim  on  the  oddity  of  their  meeting,  and 
to  explain  that  the  day  was  so  lovely  that  she  had  been 
charmed  with  the  idea  of  spending  it  in  the  country. 
And  who  would  ever  have  thought  of  finding  Mr.  Mallet 
and  Mr.  Hudson  sleeping  under  a  tree  ? 


15(5  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon ;  I  was  not  sleeping,"  said 
Rowland. 

"  Don't  you  know  that  Mr.  Mallet  is  Mr.  Hudson's 
sheep-dog  1 "  asked  Christina.  "  He  was  mounting  guard 
to  keep  away  the  wolves." 

"  To  indifferent  purpose,  madam  !  "  said  Rowland, 
indicating  the  young  girl. 

**  Is  that  the  way  you  spend  your  time  1 "  Christina 
demanded  of  Roderick.  "  I  never  yet  happened  to  learn 
what  men  were  doing  when  they  supposed  women  were  not 
watching  them  but  it  was  something  vastly  below  their 
reputation." 

"  When,  pray,"  said  Roderick,  smoothing  his  ruffled  locks, 
"  are  women  not  watching  them  '(  " 

"  We  shall  give  you  something  better  to  do  at  any  rate. 
How  long  have  you  been  here  '(  It's  an  age  since  I  have 
seen  you.  We  consider  you  an  old  inhabitant,  and  expect 
you  to  play  host  and  entertain  us." 

Roderick  said  that  he  could  offer  them  nothing 
but  to  show  them  the  great  terrace  and  its  view  ;  and 
ten  minutes  later  the  little  group  was  assembled  there. 
Mrs.  Light  was  extravagant  in  her  satisfaction  ;  Christina 
looked  away  at  the  Sabine  mountains  in  silence.  The 
Prince  stood  by,  frowning  at  the  raptures  of  the  elder 
lady. 

"  This  is  nothing,"  he  said  at  last.  "  My  word  of  honour. 
Have  you  seen  the  terrace  at  San  Gaetano  1  " 

"  Ah,  that  terrace,"  murmured  Mrs.  Light,  amorously. 
"  I  suppose  it  is  magnificent  !  " 

"  It  is  four  hundred  feet  long,  and  paved  with  marble. 
And  the  view  is  a  thousand  times  more  beautiful  than  this. 
You  see  far  away  the  blue,  blue  sea,  and  the  little  smoke  of 
Vesuvio  !  " 

"Christina  love,"  cried  Mrs.  Light  forthwith,  **the 
Prince  has  a  terrace  four  hundred  feet  long,  all  paved 
with  marble  !  " 

The  Cavaliere  gave  a  little  cough  and  began  to  wipe  his 
eye-glass. 

"Stupendous!"  said  Christina.  "To  go  from  one  end 
to  the  other  the  Prince  must  have  out  his  golden  carriage." 
This  was  apparently  an  .'vUusion  to  one  of  the  other  items 
of  the  young  man's  grandeur. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  157 

"  You  always  laugh  at  me,"  said  the  Prince.  "  I  know 
no  more  what  to  say  1  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  sad  smile  and  shook  her  head. 
"  No,  no,  dear  Prince,  I  don't  laugh  at  you.  Heaven 
forbid  !  You  are  much  too  serious  an  affair.  I  assure  you 
I  feel  your  importance.  What  did  you  inform  us  was  the 
value  of  the  hereditary  diamonds  of  the  Princess  Casamas- 
sima  i  " 

"  Ah,  you  are  laughing  at  me  yet !  "  said  the  poor  young 
man,  standing  rigid  and  pale. 

"  It  does  not  matter,"  Christina  went  on.  "  We  have 
a  note  of  it ;  mamma  writes  all  those  things  down  in  a 
little  book  ! " 

"  If  you  are  laughed  at,  dear  Prince,  at  least  it's  in 
company,"  said  Mrs.  Light  caressingly ;  and  she  took  his 
arm,  as  if  to  combat  his  possible  displacement  under  the 
shock  of  her  daughter's  sarcasm.  But  the  Prince  looked 
heavy-eyed  at  Rowland  and  Roderick,  to  whom  the  young 
girl  was  turning,  as  if  he  had  much  rather  his  lot  were 
cast  with  theirs. 

"Is  the  villa  inhabited?"  Christina  asked,  pointing  to 
the  vast  melancholy  structure  which  rises  above  the 
t^race. 

"  Not  privately,"  said  Roderick.     "  It  is  occupied  by  a 
Jesuits'  college  for  little  boys." 
"  Can  women  go  in  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  not."  And  Roderick  began  to  laugh. 
"  Fancy  the  poor  little  devils  looking  up  from  their  Latin 
declensions  and  seeing  Miss  Light  shining  down-  on 
them  !  " 

"  I  should  like  to  see  the  poor  little  devils,  with  their 
rosy  cheeks,  and  their  long  black  gowns,  and  when  they 
were  pretty  I  shouldn't  scruple  to  kiss  them.  But  if  I 
can't  have  that  amusement  I  must  have  some  other.  \  We 
must  not  stand  planted  on  this  enchanting  terrace  as  if 
we  were  stakes  driven  into  the  earth.  We  must  dance,  we 
must  feast,  we  must  do  something  picturesque.  Mamma 
has  arranged  I  believe  that  we  are  to  go  back  to  Frascati 
to  lunch  at  the  inn.  I  decree  that  we  lunch  here  and  send 
the  Cavaliere  to  the  inn  to  get  the  provisions  !  He  can 
take  the  carriage,  which  is  waiting  below." 

Miss  Light  carried  out  this  programme  with  unfaltering 


158  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

ardour.  The  Cavaliere  was  summoned,  and  he  stood  to 
receive  her  commands  hat  in  hand,  with  his  eyes  cast  down, 
as  if  she  had  been  a  princess  addressing  her  major-domo. 
She  however  hiid  her  hand  with  friendly  grace  upon  his 
button-hole  and  called  him  a  dear  good  old  Cavaliere  for 
being  always  so  obliging.  Her  spirits  had  risen  with  the 
occasion  and  she  talked  irresistible  nonsense.  "  Bring  the 
best  they  have,"  she  said,  "  no  matter  if  it  ruins  us  !  And 
if  the  best  is  very  bad  it  will  be  all  the  more  amusing.  I 
shall  enjoy  seeing-JUjt\_Mallet  try  to  swallow  it  _fp^l_^ro- 
priety's  sake  !  Mr.  Hudson  will  say  out  like  a  man  thai 
it's  horrible  stuff  and  that  he'll  be  choked  first !  Be  sure 
you  bring  a  dish  of  maccaroni  ;  the  Prince  must  have  the 
diet  of  the  Neapolitan  nobility.  But  I  leave  all  that  to 
you,  my  poor  dear  Cavaliere ;  you  know  what's  good  ! 
Only  be  sure  above  all  you  bring  a  guitar.  Mr.  Mallei 
will  play  us  a  tune,  I  will  dance  with  Mr.  Hudson,  and 
mamma  will  pair  off  with  the  Prince,  of  whom  she  is  so 
fond  !  " 

And  as  she  concluded  her  recommendations,  she  patted 
her  discreet  old  servitor  tenderly  on  the  shoulder.  He 
looked  askance  at  Eowland  ;  his  little  black  eye  glittered  : 
it  seemed  to  say,  "  Didn't  I  tell-  you  she  was  a  good 
girl ?  " 

The  Cavaliere  returned  with  zealous  speed,  accompanied 
by  one  of  the  servants  of  the  inn,  laden  with  a  basket 
containing  the  materials  of  a  rustic  luncheon.  The  porter 
of  the  villa  was  easily  induced  to  furnish  a  table  and  half 
a  dozen  chairs,  andUhe  repast  when  set  forth  was  pro- 
nounced a  perfect  success  ;  not  so  good  as  to  fail  of  the 
proper  picturesqueness,  nor  yet  so  bad  as  to  defeat  the 
proper  function  of  repastsr  Christina  continued  to  display 
the  most  charming  animation,  and  compelled  Eowland  to 
reflect  privately  that,  think  what  one  might  of  her,  the 
harmonious  gaiety  of  a  beautiful  girl  was  the  most  delight- 
ful sight  in  nature.  Her  good-humour  was  contagious, 
Roderick,  who  an  hour  before  had  been  descanting  on  mad- 
ness and  suicide,  commingled  his  laughter  with  her  lightest 
sallies ;  Prince  Casamassima  stroked  his  young  moustache 
and  found  a  fine  cool  smile  for  everything  ;  his  neighbour 
Mrs.  Light,  who  had  Piowland  on  the  other  side,"  made 
the  friendliest  confidences  to  each  of  the  young  men,  and 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  160 

the  Cavaliere  contributed  to  the  general  hilarity  by  the 
solemnity  of  his  attention  to  his  plate.  As  for  E-owland, 
the  spirit  of  kindly  mirth  prompted  him  to  propose  the 
health  of  this  useful  old  gentleman.  A  moment  later  he 
wished  he  had  held  his  tongue,  for  although  the  toast  was 
drunk  with  demonstrative  good-will,  the  Cavaliere  received 
it  with  various  small  signs  of  eager  self-eiiacement  which 
suggested  to  Eowland  that  his  diminished  gentility  but 
half  relished  honours  which  had  a  flavour  of  patronage. 
To  perform  punctiliously  his  mysterious  duties  towards  the 
two  ladies,  and  to  elude  or  to  baffle  observation  on  his  own 
merits — this  seemed  the  Cavaliere  s  modest  programme. 
Rowland  perceived  that  Mrs.  Light,  who  was  not  always 
remarkable  for  tact,  seemed  to  have  divined  his  humour  on 
this  point.  She  touched  her  lips  with  her  glass,  but  she 
said  nothing  gracious,  and  she  immediately  gave  another 
direction  to  the  conversation.  The  old  man  had  brought  no 
guitar,  so  that  when  the  feast  was  over  there  was  nothing 
to  hold  the  little  group  together.  Christina  wandered  away 
with  lioderick  to  another  part  of  the  terrace  ;  the  Prince, 
whose  smile  had  vanished,  sat  gnawing  the  head  of  his  cane, 
near  Mrs.  Light,  and  Rowland  strolled  apart  with  the 
Cavaliere,  to  whom  he  wished  to  address  a  friendly  word 
in  compensation  for  the  discomfort  he  had  inCicted  on  his 
modesty.  The  Cavaliere  was  a  mine  of  information  upon 
all  Roman  places  and  people ;  he  told  Rowland  a  number 
of  curious  anecdotes  about  the  old  Villa  Mondragone.  "  If 
history  could  always  be  taught  in  tliis  fashion  !  "  thought 
Rowland.  "  It's  the  ideal — strolling  up  and  down  on  the 
very  spot  commemorated,  hearing  out-of-the-way  anecdotes 
from  deeply  indigenous  lips."  At  last,  as  they  passed, 
Rowland  observed  the  mournful  physiognomy  of  Prince 
Casamassima,  and  glancing  towards  the  other  end  of  the 
terrace  saw  that  Roderick  and  Christina  had  disappeared 
from  view.  The  young  man  was  sitting  upright  in  au 
attitude,  appa,rently  habitual,  of  ceremonious  rigidity ;  but 
his  lower  jaw  had  fallen  and  was  propped  up  with  his 
cane,  and  his  dull  dark  eye  was  fixed  upon  the  angle  of 
the  villa  which  had  just  eclipsed  Miss  Light  and  her  com- 
panion. His  features  were  grotesque  and  his  expression 
was  vacuous ;  but  there  was  a  lurking  delicacy  in  his  face 
which   seemed  to  tell  you  that  nature  had   been  making 


160  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Casiimassimas  for  a  great  many  centuries,  and,  though  ishe 
adapted  her  mould  to  circumstances,  had  learned  to  mix 
her  material  to  an  extraordinary  fineness  and  to  perforin 
the  whole  operation  with  extreme  smoothness.  The  Prince 
was  stupid,  Rowland  suspected,  but  he  imagined  he  was 
amiable,  and  he  saw  that  at  any  rate  he  had  the  great 
(juality  of  regarding  himself  in  a  thoroughly  serious  light. 
Rowland  touched  his  companion's  arm  and  pointed  to 
the  melancholy  nobleman. 

*'  Why  in  the  world  does  he  not  go  after  her  and  insist 
on  being  noticed  1 "  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  he's  very  proud  !  "  said  the  Cavaliere. 
^'  That's  all  very  well,  but  a  gentleman  who  cultivates 
a  passion  for  that  young  lady  must  be  prepared  to  make 
sacrifices." 

"  He  thinks  he  has  already  made  a  great  many.  He 
comes  of  a  very  great  family — a  race  of  princes  who  for 
six  hundred  years  have- married  none  but  the  daughters 
of  princes.  But  he  is  seriously  in  love  and  he  would 
marry  her  to-morrow." 

"  And  she  will  not  have  him  ?  " 

*' Ah,  she  is  very  proud  too  !  "  The  Cavaliere  was  silent 
a  moment,  as  if  he  were  measuring  the  propriety  of  frank- 
ness. He  seemed  to  have  formed  a  high  opinion  of  Row- 
land's discretion,  for  he  presently  continued — "It  would 
be  a  great  match,  for  she  brings  him  neither  a  name  nor 
a  fortune — nothing  but  her  beauty.  But  the  signorina 
will  receive  no  favours ;  I  know  her  well  !  She  would 
rather  have  her  beauty  blasted  than  seem  to  care  about 
the  marriage,  and  if  she  ever  accepts  the  Prince  it  will  be 
only  after  he  has  implored  her  on  his  knees  !  " 

"But  she  does  care  about  it,"  said  Rowland,  "and  to 
bring  him  to  his  knees  she  is  working  upon  his  jealousy 
by  pretending  to  be  interested  in  my  friend  Hudson.  If 
you  said  more,  you  would  say  that,  eh  1  " 

The  Cavaliere' s  shrewdness  exchanged  a  glance  with 
Rowland's.  "  By  no  means.  Christina  is  a  singular  girl : 
she  has  many  romantic  ideas.  She  would  be  quite  capable 
of  interesting  herself  seriously  in  a  remarkable  young  man 
like  your  friend,  and  doing  her  utmost  to  discourage  a 
splendid  suitor  like  the  Prince.  She  would  act  Fincerely 
and  she  would  go  very  far.     But  it  would  be  unfortunate 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  161 

for  the  remarkable  young  man,"  he  added,  after  a  pause, 
"  for  at  the  last  she  would  go  back  !  '^ 

"  A  singular  girl  indeed  !  " 

"  She  would  accept  the  more  brilliant  parti.  I  can 
answer  for  it." 

"  And  what  would  be  her  motive  ?  "^ 

"She  would  be  forced.  There  would  be  circumstances 
....  I  can't  tell  you  more." 

"  But  this  implies  that  the  rejected  suitor  would  come 
back  to  her.     He  might  grow  tired  of  waiting." 

"  Oh,  this  one  is  good  !  Look  at  him  now."  Rowland 
looked,  and  saw  that  the  Prince  had  left  his  place  by  Mrs. 
Light  and  was  marching  restlessly  to  and  fro  between  the 
villa  and  the  parapet  of  the  terrace.  Every  now  and  then 
he  looked  at  his  watch.  "  In  this  country,  you  know,"  said 
the  Cavaliere,  "  a  young  lady  never  goes  walking  alone  with 
a  handsome  young  man.     It  seems  to  him  very  strange." 

"  It  must  seem  to  him  monstrous,  and  if  he  overlooks 
it  he  must  be  very  much  in  love." 

"  Oh,  he  will  overlook  it.     He  is  far  gone.*^ 

"  Who  is  this  exemplary  lover  then  ;  what  is  he  1  "' 

**  A  Neapolitan  ;  one  of  the  oldest  houses  in  Italy.  He 
is  a  prince  in  your  English  sense  of  the  word,  for  he  has 
a  princely  fortune.  He  is  very  young ;  he  is  only  just  of 
age  ;  he  saw  the  signorina  last  winter  in  Naples.  He  fell 
in  love  with  her  from  the  first,  but  his  family  interfered, 

and  an  old  uncle,  an  ecclesiastic,  Monsignor  B ,  hurried 

up  to  Naples,  seized  him  and  locked  him  up.  Meantime 
he  has  passed  his  majority  and'  he  can  dispose  of  himself. 
His  relations  are  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  prevent  his 
marrying  Miss  Light,  and  they  have  sent  us  word  that  he 
forfeits  his  property  if  he  takes  his  wife  out  of  a  certain 
line.  I  have  investigated  the  question,  and  I  find  this  is 
but  a  fiction  to  frighten  us.  He  is  perfectly  free ;  but  the 
estates  are  such  that  it  is  no  wonder  they  wish  to  keep 
them  in  their  own  hands.  For  Italy,  it  is  an  extraordinary 
case  of  unincumbered  property.  The  Prince  has  been  an 
orphan  from  his  third  year  ;  he  has  therefore  had  a  long 
minority  and  made  no  inroads  upon  his  fortune.  Besides, 
he  is  very  prudent  and  orderly ;  I  am  only  afraid  that 
some  day  he  will  pull  the  purse-strings  too  tight.  All 
these  years  his  affairs  have  been  in  the  hands  of  Monsignor 


162  RODFJUCK  HUDSO>T. 

\vho   has    inanuged    tLem    to    perfection — paid  off 


mortgages,  planted  forests,  opened  up  mines.  It  is  now 
a  magnificent  fortune  ;  such  a  fortune  as  with  his  name 
would  justify  the  young  man  in  pretending  to  any  alliance 
whatsoever.  And  he  lays  it  all  at  the  feet  of  that  young  girl 
who  is  wandering  in  yonder  boschetto  with  a  penniless  artist." 

"  He  is  certainly  a  phcjinix  of  princes  1  The  signora 
must  be  in  a  state  of  bliss." 

The  Cavaliere  looked  imperturbably  grave.  "  The  signora 
has  a  high  esteem  for  his  character." 

"  His  character,  by  the  way,"  rejoined  Rowland,  with 
a  smile  ;  "  what  sort  of  a  character  is  it  ]  " 

"  Eh,  Prince  Casamassima  is  a  veritable  prince !  He  is 
a  very  good  young  man.  He  is  not  brilliant  nor  witty,  but 
he  will  not  let  himtelf  be  made  a  fool  of.  He  is  a  faithful 
son  of  the  Church — though  he  does  propose  to  marry  a 
Protestant.  He  will  handle  that  point  after  marriage. 
He's  as  you  see  him  there :  a  young  man  without  many 
ideas,  but  with  a  very  firm  grasp  of  a  single  one — the 
conviction  that  Prince  Casamassima  is  a  very  great  person, 
that  he  greatly  honours  any  young  lady  by  asking  for  her 
hand,  and  that  things  are  going  very  strangely  when  the 
young  lady  turns  her  back  upon  him.  The  poor  young 
man  is  terribly  puzzled.  But  I  whisper  to  him  every  day, 
*  Pazienza,  Signer  Principe  ! '  " 

"  So  you  firmly  believe,"  said  Rowland,  in  conclusion, 
"  that  Miss  Light  will  accept  him  just  in  time  not  to  lose 
him  1.  " 

"  I  count  upon  it.  She  would  make  too  perfect  a 
princess  to  miss  her  destiny." 

"  And  you  hold  that  nevertheless  in  the  meanwhile  in 
listening  to,  say,  my  friend  Hudson,  she  will  have  been 
acting  in  good  faith  1  " 

The  Cavaliere  lifted  his  shoulders  a  trif  e,  and  gave  an 
inscrutable  smile.  "  Eh,  dear  signore,  the  Christina  is 
very  romantic  !  " 

"  So  much  so,  you  intimate,  that  e he  will  eventually 
pivot  round  in  consequence  not  of  a  change  of  sentiment, 
but  of  a  mysterious  outward  pressure  1  " 

"  If  everything  else  fails,  there  is  that  resource.  But 
it  is  mysterious,  as  you  say,  and  you  needn't  try  to  guess 
it.     You  will  never  know." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  163 

''The  poor  signorina  then  will  suffer  !  " 

**  Not  too  much,  I  hope." 

"  And  the  remarkable  young  man  1  You  maintain  that 
there  is  nothing  but  disappointment  in  store  for  the 
infatuated  youth  who  loses  his  heart  to  her." 

The  Cavaliere  hesitated.  "  He  had  better,"  he  said  in 
a  moment,  "  go  and  pursue  his  studies  in  Florence.  There 
are  very  fine  antiques  in  the  Uffizi  !  " 

Rowland  presently  joined  Mrs.  Light,  to  whom  her 
restless  protege  had  not  yet  returned.  "  That's  right,"  she 
said  ;  "sit  down  here ;  I  have  something  serious  to  say  to 
you.  I  am  going  to  talk  to  you  as  a  friend.  I  want  your 
assistance.  In  fact,  you  must  help  me  ;  it's  your  duty. 
Look  at  that  unhappy  young  man." 

"  Yes,"  said  Rowland,  "  he  seems  unhappy." 

"  He  is  just  come  of  age,  he  bears  one  of  the  greatest 
names  in  Italy,  and  owns  one  of  the  greatest  properties, 
and  he  is  pining  away  with  love  for  my  daughter." 

"So  the  Cavaliere  tells  me." 

"  The  Cavaliere  shouldn't  gossip,"  said  Mrs.  Light  dryly. 
"  Such  information  should  come  from  me.  The  Prince  is 
pining,  as  I  say ;  he's  consumed,  he's  devoured.  It's  a  real 
Italian  passion  :  I  know  what  that  means  !  "  And  the 
lady  gave  a  speaking  glance,  which  seemed  to  coquet  for 
a  moment  with  retrospect.  "  Meanwhile,  if  you  please, 
my  daughter  is  hiding  in  the  woods  with  your  dear  friend 
Mr.  Hudson.     I  could  cry  with  rage  !  " 

"  If  things  are  as  bad  as  that,"  said  Rowland,  "  it  seems 
to  me  that  you  should  find  nothing  easier  than  to  despatch 
the  Cavalier  to  bring  the  guilty  couple  back." 

"  Never  in  the  world  !  My  hands  are  tied.  Do  you  know 
what  Christina  would  do  %  She  would  tell  the  Cavaliere 
to  go  about  his  business — Heaven  forgive  her  ! — and  send 
me  word  that  if  she  had  a  mind  to  she  would  walk  in  the 
woods  till  midnight.  Fancy  the  Cavaliere  coming  back  and 
delivering  such  a  message  as  that  before  the  Prince  1  Think 
of  a  girl  wantonly  making  light  of  such  a  chance  as  hers  ! 
He  would  marry  her  to-morrow  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.' 

"  It  is  certainly  very  sad,"  said  Rowland. 

"  That  costs  you  little  to  say  !  If  you  had  left  your 
precious  young  meddler  to  vegetate  in  his  native  village 
you  would  have  saved  me  a  world  of  bother !  " 

L  2 


164  IIODERICK  HUDSON. 

"All,  you  marched  into  the  jaws  of  danger,"  said 
Rowland.  *'  You  came  and  knocked  at  poor  Hudson's 
door." 

"  In  an  evil  hour !  I  wish  to  Heaven  you  would  talk 
with  him." 

"  I  have  done  my  best." 
"  "  I  wish  then  you  would  take  him  away.  You  have 
plenty  of  money.  Do  me  a  favour.  Take  him  to  travel. 
Go  to  the  East — go  to  Timbnctoo.  Then,  when  Christina 
is  Princess  Casamassima,"  Mrs.  Light  added  in  a  moment, 
'*  he  may  come  back  if  he  chooses  !  " 

"Does  she  really  care  for  him?"  Rowland  asked, 
abruptly. 

"  She  thinks  she  does,  possibly.  She  is  a  living  riddle. 
She  must  needs  follow  out  every  idea  that  comes  into  her 
head.  Fortunately  most  of  them  don't  last  long  ;  but  this 
one  may  last  long  enough  to  give  the  Prince  a  fit  of  disgust. 
If  that  were  to  happen,  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do  ! 
I  should  be  the  most  miserable  of  women.  It  would  be 
too  cruel,  after  all  I  have  suffered  to  make  her  what  she 
is,  to  see  the  labour  of  years  blighted  by  a  caprice.  For 
I  can  assure  you,  sir,"  Mrs.  Light  went  on,  "  that  if  my 
daughter  is  the  greatest  beauty  in  the  world  some  of  the 
credit  is  mine." 

Rowland  promptly  remarked  that  this  was  obvious.  He 
saw  that  the  lady's  irritated  nerves  demanded  comfort 
from  flattering  reminiscence,  and  he  assumed  designedly 
the  attitude  of  a  zealous  auditor.  She  began  to  tell  the 
story  of  her  efforts,  her  hopes,  her  dreams,  her  presenti- 
ments, her  disappointments,  in  this  exalted  cause  of 
catching  a  great  husband  for  her  daughter.  It  was  a 
wonderful  rigmarole  of  strange  confidences,  and  while  it 
went  on  the  Prince  continued  to  pass  to  and  fro,  stiffly 
and  solemnly,  like  a  pendulum  marking  the  time  allowed 
for  the  young  lady  to  come  to  her  senses.  Mrs,  Light 
evidently,  at  an  early  period  had  gathered  her  maternal 
hopes  into  a  sacred  parcel,  to  which  she  said  her  prayers 
and  burnt  incense — which  she  treated  generally  as  a  sort 
of  fetish.  These  things  had  been  her  religion ;  she  had 
none  other,  and  she  performed  her  devotions  bravely  and 
cheerily,  in  the  light  of  day.  The  poor  old  fetish  had 
been  so  caressed  and  manipulated,  so  thrust  in  and  out  of 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  165 

its  niche,  so  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  so  dressed  and 
undressed,  so  mumbled  and  fumbled  over,  that  it  had  lost 
by  this  time  much  of  its  early  freshness,  and  seemed  a 
rather  battered  and  disfeatured  divinity.  But  it  was  still 
brought  forth  in  moments  of  trouble,  to  have  its  tinselled 
petticoat  twisted  about  and  be  set  up  on  its  altar.  Row- 
land observed  that  Mrs.  Light  had  a  real  maternal  con- 
science ;  she  considered  that  she  had  been  performing  a 
pious  duty  in  bringing  up  Christina  to  set  her  cap  for 
a  prince;  and  when  the  future  looked  dark  she  found 
consolation  in  thinking  that  destiny  could  never  have  the 
heart  to  deal  a  blow  at  so  deserving  a  person.  This  con- 
science upside  down  presented  to  Rowland's  fancy  a  sort 
of  physical  image ;  he  was  on  the  point  half  a  dozen  times 
of  laughing  out. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  believe  in  presentiments," 
said  Mrs.  Light,  "  and  I  don't  care  !  I  have  had  one  for 
the  last  fifteen  years.  People  have  laughed  at  it,  but  they 
have  not  laughed  me  out  of  it.  It  has  been  everything  to 
me ;  I  couldn't  have  lived  without  it.  One  must  believe 
in  something  !  It  came  to  me  in  a  flash,  when  Christina 
was  five  years  old.  I  remember  the  day  and  the  place,  as 
if  it  were  yesterday.  She  was  a  very  ugly  baby ;  for  the 
first  two  years  I  could  hardly  bear  to  look  at  her,  and  I 
used  to  spoil  my  own  looks  with  crying  about  her.  She 
had  an  Italian  nurse  who  was  very  fond  of  her,  and  insisted 
that  she  would  grow  up  pretty.  I  couldn't  believe  her,  I 
used  to  contradict  her,  and  we  were  for  ever  squabbling. 
I  was  just  a  little  silly  in  those  days — surely  I  may  say 
it  now — and  I  was  very  fond  of  being  amused.  If  my 
daughter  was  ugly,  it  was  not  that  she  resembled  her 
mamma ;  I  had  no  lack  of  amusement.  People  accused 
me,  I  believe,  of  neglecting  my  little  girl;  if  I  ever  did 
I  have  made  up  for  it  since.  One  day  I  went  to  drive  on 
the  Pincio — I  was  in  very  low  spirits.  A  certain  person 
— I  needn't  name  him — had  trifled  with  my  generous 
confidence.  While  I  was  there  he  passed  me  in  a  carriage, 
driving  with  a  horrible  woman  who  had  made  trouble 
between  us.  I  got  out  of  my  carriage  to  walk  about,  and 
at  last  sat  down  on  a  bench.  I  can  show  you  the  spot  at 
this  hour.  While  I  sat  there  a  child  came  wander- 
ing along  the  path — a   little   girl   of   four   or   five,  very 


166  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

fantastically  dressed,  in  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow. 
She  stopped  in  front  of  me  and  stared  at  me,  and  I 
stared  at  her  queer  little  dress,  which  was  a  cheap  imita- 
tion of  the  costume  of  one  of  these  contadine.  At  last  I 
looked  up  at  her  face  and  said  to  myself,  *  Bless  me,  what 
a  beautiful  child  !  what  a  splendid  jjair  of  eyes,  what  a 
magnificent  head  of  hair !  If  my  poor  little  Christina 
were  only  like  that !  '  The  child  turned  away  slowly, 
but  looking  back  with  its  eyes  fixed  on  me.  All  of  a 
sudden  I  gave  a  cry,  pounced  on  it,  pressed  it  in  my 
arms,  covered  it  with  kisses.  It  was  Christina,  my 
own  precious  child,  so  disguised  by  the  ridiculous  dress 
which  the  niu-se  had  amused  herself  in  making  for  her, 
that  her  own  mother  had  not  recognised  her  !  She  knew 
me,  but  she  said  afterw.irds  that  she  had  not  spoken  to  me 
because  I  looked  so  angry.  Of  coarse,  my  face  was  sad  ! 
I  rushed  with  my  child  to  the  carriage,  drove  home  post- 
haste, pulled  olf  her  rags,  and,  as  I  may  say,  wrapped  her 
up  in  cotton.  I  had  been  blind,  I  had  been  insane  ;  she 
was  a  creature  in  ten  millions,  she  was  to  be  a  beauty  of 
beauties,  a  priceless  treasure  !  Every  day,  after  that,  the 
certainty  grew.  From  that  time  I  lived  only  for  my 
daughter.  I  watched  her,  I  fondled  her  from  morning- 
till  night,  I  worshipped  her.  I  went  to  see  doctors  about 
her,  I  took  every  sort  of  advice.  I  was  determined  she 
should  be  perfection.  The  things  that  have  been  done  for 
that  girl,  sir— you  wouldn't  believe  them ;  they  would 
make  you  smile !  Nothing  was  spe.red  ;  if  I  had  been 
told  that  she  must  have  a  bath  every  morning  of  molten 
pearls  I  would  have  found  means  to  give  it  to  her.  She 
never  raised  a  finger  for  herself,  she  breathed  nothing  but 
perfumes,  she  walked  upon  velvet.  She  never  was  out  of 
my  sight,  and  from  that  day  to  this  I  have  never  said  a 
sharp  word  to  her.  By  the  time  she  was  ten  years  old 
she  was  beautiful  as  an  angel,  and  so  noticed,  wherever  we 
went,  that  I  had  to  make  her  wear  a  veil  like  a  woman  of 
twenty.  Her  hair  reached  down  to  her  feet ;  her  hands 
were  the  hands  of  an  empress.  Then  I  saw  that  she  was 
as  clever  as  she  was  beautiful,  and  that  she  had  only  to 
play  her  cards.  She  had  masters,  professors,  every  educa- 
tional advantage.  They  told  me  she  was  a  little  prodigy. 
She   speaks   French,  Italian,  German,   better   than   most 


PtODERICK  HUDSON.  167 

natives.  She  has  a  wonderful  genius  for  music,  and  might 
make  her  fortune  as  a  pianist  if  it  were  not  made  for  her 
otherwise  !  I  travelled  all  over  Europe,  every  one  told  me 
she  was  a  marvel.  The  director  of  the  opera  in  Paris  saw 
her  dance  at  a  child's  party  at  Spa,  and  offered  me  an 
enormous  sum  if  I  would  give  her  up  to  him  and  let  him 
have  her  educated  for  the  ballet.  I  said,  '  No,  I  thank 
you,  sir ;  she  is  meant  to  be  something  finer  than  a 
princesse  de  thedtre.'  I  had  a  passionate  belief  that  she 
might  marry  absolutely  whom  she  chose,  that  she  might 
be  a  princess  out  and  out.  I  have  never  given  it  up, 
and  I  can  assure  you  that  it  has  sustained  me  in  many 
embarrassments.  Financial,  some  of  them ;  I  don't  mind 
confessing  it !  I  have  raised  money  on  that  girl's  face  ! 
I  have  taken  her  to  the  Jews  and  bidden  her  put  up  her 
veil,  and  asked  if  the  mother  of  that  young  lady  was  not 
safe  !  She,  of  course,  was  too  young  to  understand  me. 
And  yet,  as  a  child,  you  would  have  said  she  knew  what 
was  in  store  for  her;  before  she  could  read  she  had 
the  manners,  the  tastes,  the  instincts  of  a  little  aristocrat. 
She  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  shabby  things  or 
shabby  people;  if  she  stained  one  of  her  frocks  she  was 
seized  with  a  kind  of  frenzy — she  would  tear  it  to  pieces. 
At  Nice,  at  Baden,  at  Brighton,  wherever  we  stayed,  she 
used  to  be  sent  for  by  all  the  great  people  to  play  with 
their  children.  She  has  played  at  kissing-games  with 
people  who  now  stand  on  the  steps  of  thrones  !  I  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  think  at  times  that  those  childish 
kisses  were  a  sign — a  symbol — a  pledge  !  You  ma}^  laugh 
at  me  if  you  like,  but  haven't  such  things  happened  again 
and  again  without  half  so  good  a  cause,  and  doesn't  history 
notoriously  repeat  itself  1  There  was  a  little  Spanish  girl 
at  a  second-rate  English  boarding-school  thirty  years  ago  ! 
....  The  Empress  certainly  is  a  pretty  woman ;  but 
what  is  my  Christina,  pray?  I  have  dreamt  of  it  some- 
times, every  night  for  a  month.  I  won't  tell  you  I  have 
been  to  consult  those  old  women  who  advertise  in  the 
newspapers ;  you'll  call  me  an  old  imbecile.  Imbecile,  if 
you  please !  I  have  refused  magnificent  offers  because  I 
believed  that  somehow  or  other — if  wars  and  revolutions 
were  needed  to  bring  it  about — we  should  have  nothing 
less    than    that.      There    might    be    another   coup  d'etat 


168  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

somewhere,  and  another  brilliant  young  sovereign  looking 
out  for  a  wife !  At  last,  however,"  Mrs.  Light  proceeded  with 
incomparable  gravity,  ''  since  the  overturning  of  the  poor 
king  of  Naples  and  that  charming  queen,  and  the  expulsion 
of  all  those  dear  little  old-fashioned  Italian  grand-dukes, 
and  the  dreadful  radical  talk  that  is  going  on  all  over  the 
world,  it  has  come  to  seem  to  me  that  with  Christina  in 
such  a  position  I  should  be  really  very  nervous.  Even  in 
such  a  position  she  would  hold  her  head  very  high,  and  if 
anything  should  happen  to  her  she  would  make  no  con- 
cessions to  the  popular  fury.  The  best  thing,  if  one  would 
be  prudent,  seems  to  be  a  nobleman  of  the  highest  possible 
rank  short  of  belonging  to  a  reigning  stock.  There  you 
see  one  striding  up  and  down  looking  at  his  watch  and 
counting  the  minutes  till  my  daughter  reappears  !  " 

Rowland  listened  to  all  this  with  a  large  compassion 
for  the  heroine  of  the  tale.  What  an  education,  what  a 
history,  what  a  school  of  character  and  of  morals !  He 
looked  at  the  Prince  and  wondered  whether  he  too  had 
heard  Mrs.  Light's  story.  If  he  had  he  was  a  brave  man. 
"  I  certainly  hope  you  will  nail  him,"  he  said  to  Mrs. 
Light.  "  You  have  played  a  dangerous  game  with  your 
daughter ;  it  would  be  a  pity  not  to  win  1  But  there  is 
hope  for  you  yet ;  here  she  comes  at  last  ! 

Christina  reappeared  as  he  spoke  these  words,  strolling 
beside  her  companion  with  the  same  indifferent  tread  with 
A  which  she  had  departed.  Rodeiick-  imagined  that  there 
was  a  faint  pink  flush  in  her  cheek  which  she  had  not 
carried  away  with  her,  and  there  was  certainly  a  light  in 
Roderick's  eyes  which  he  had  not  seen  there  for  a  week. 

"  Bless  my  soul,  how  they  are  all  looking  at  us  !  "  she 
cried  as  they  advanced.  "  One  would  think  we  were 
prisoners  of  the  Inquisition  !  "  And  she  paused  and 
glanced  from  the  Prince  to  her  mother,  and  from  Rowland 
to  the  Cavaliere,  and  then  threw  back  her  head  and  burst 
into  far-ringing  laughter.  "  What  is  it  pray  ?  Have  I 
been  very  improper  1  Am  I  ruined  for  ever  ?  Dear 
Prince,  you  are  looking  at  me  as  if  I  had  committed  the 
unpardonable  sin  !  " 

"  I  myself,"  said  the  Prince,  "  would  never  have  ven- 
tured to  ask  you  to  walk  with  me  alone  in  the  country  for 
an  hour !  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  169 

"  The  more  fool  you,  dear  Prince,  as  the  vulgar  say  ! 
Our  walk  has  been  charming.  I  hope  you,  on  your  side, 
have  enjoyed  each  other's  society.'^ 

"  My  dear  daughter,"  said  JVJrs.  Light,  taking  the  arm 
of  her  predestined  son-in-law,  "  I  shall  have  something 
serious  to  say  to  you  when  we  reach  home.  We  will  go 
back  to  the  carriage." 

''  Something  serious  !  Decidedly,  it  is  the  Inquisition. 
Mr.  Hudson,  stand  firm,  and  let  us  agree  to  make  no 
confessions  without  conferring  previously  with  each  other  ! 
They  may  put  us  on  the  rack  first.  Mr.  Mallet  I  see 
also,"  Christina  added,  "  has  something  serious  to  say  to 
me!" 

Rowland  had  been  looking  at  her  with  the  shadow 
of  his  lately-stirred  pity  in  his  eyes.  "  Possibly,"  he 
said.     "  But  it  must  be  for  some  other  time." 

"  I  am  at  your  service.  I  see  our  good  humour  is  gone. 
And  I  only  wanted  to  be  amiable  !  It  is  very  discouraging. 
Cavaliere,  you  alone  look  as  if  you  had  a  little  of  the  milk 
of  human  kindness  left;  from  your  dear  old  stupid  face, 
at  least,  there  is  no  telling  what  you  think.  Give  me  your 
arm  and  take  me  away !  " 

The  party  took  its  course  back  to  the  carriage,  which 
was  waiting  in  the  grounds  of  the  villa,  and  Rowland 
and  Roderick  bade  their  friends  farewell.  Christina 
threw  herself  back  in  her  seat  and  closed  her  eyes ; 
a  manoeuvre  for  which  Rowland  imagined  the  Prince 
was  grateful,  as  it  enabled  him  to  look  at  her  without 
seeming  to  depart  from  his  attitude  of  distinguished 
disapproval. 

Rowland  found  himself  aroused  from  sleep  early  the 
next  morning,  to  see  Roderick  standing  before  him,  dressed 
for  departure,  with  his  bag  in  his  hand.  "  I  am  off,"  he 
said.  "I  am  back  to  work.  I  have  an  idea.  I  must 
strike  while  the  iron  is  hot  !  Farewell !  "  And  he 
departed  by  the  first  train.  Rowland  went  alone  by  the 
next. 


170  KODEIIICK  HUDSON. 


XIII. 


Rowland  went  very  often  to  the  Coliseum ;  he  was 
never  tired  of  inspecting  this  monament.  One  morning 
about  a  month  after  his  return  from  Frascati,  as  he  was 
strolling  across  the  vast  arena,  he  observed  a  young  woman 
seated  on  one  of  the  fragments  of  stone  which  are  ranged 
along  the  line  of  the  ancient  parapet.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  seen  her  before,  but  he  was  unable  to  localise 
her  face.  Passing  her  again  he  perceived  that  one  of  the 
little  red-legged  French  soldiers  who  were  at  that  time  on 
guard  there  had  approached  her  and  was  gallantly  making 
himself  agreeable.  She  smiled  brilliantly,  and  Kowland 
recognised  the  smile  (it  had  always  pleased  him)  of  a 
certain  comely  Assunta  who  sometimes  opened  the  door 
for  Mrs.  Light's  visitors.  He  wondered  what  she  was 
doing  alone  in  the  Coliseum,  and  conjectured  that  Assunta 
had  admirers  as  well  as  her  young  mistress,  but  that  being 
without  the  same  domiciliary  conveniences  she  was  using 
this  massive  heritage  of  her  Latin  ancestors  as  a  l^oudoir. 
In  other  words,  she  had  an  appointment  with  her  lover, 
who  would  do  well  from  present  appearances  to  be  punctual. 
It  was  a  long  time  since  Rowland  had  ascended  to  the  ruinous 
upper  tiers  of  the  great  circus,  and  as  the  day  w  is  radiant 
and  the  distant  views  promised  to  be  particularly  clear  he 
determined  to  give  himself  this  pleasure.  The  custodian 
unlocked  the  great  wooden  wicket,  and  he  climbed  through 
the  winding  shafts  where  the  eager  Roman  crowds  had  bil- 
lowed and  trampled,  not  pausing  till  he  reached  the  highest 
accessible  point  of  the  ruin.  The  views  were  as  fine  as  he 
had  supposed  ;  the  lights  on  the  Sabine  mountains  had 
never  been  more  lovely.  He  gazed  to  his  satisfaction  and 
retraced  his  steps.  In  a  moment  he  paused  again  on  an 
abutment  somewhat  lower,  from  which  the  glance  dropped 
dizzily  into  the  interior.  There  are  accidents  of  rugged- 
ness  in  the  upper  portions  of  the  Coliseum  which  offer  a 
very  fair  imitation  of  the  mighty  excrescences  in  the  face 
of  an  Alpine  cliff.  In  those  days  a  multitude  of  delicate 
flowers  and  sprays  of  wild  herbage  had  found  a  friendly 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  171 

soil  in  the  hoary  crevices,  and  they  bloomed  and  nodded 
amid  the  antique  masonry  as  naturally  as  if  it  were  the 
boulders  of  a  mountain.  Kowland  was  turning  away  when 
he  heard  a  sound  of  voices  rising  up  from  below.  He  had 
but  to  step  slightly  forward  to  find  himself  overlooking 
two  persons  who  had  seated  themselves  on  a  narrow  ledge 
in  a  sunny  corner.  They  had  apparently  an  eye  to  extreme 
privacy,  but  they  had  not  observed  that  their  position  was 
commanded  by  the  abutment  on  which  Rowland  stood. 
One  of  these  airy  adventurers  was  a  lady,  thickly  veiled, 
so  that  even  if  he  had  not  been  placed  directly  above  her 
Rowland  could  not  have  seen  her  face.  The  other  was  a 
young  man  whose  face  was  also  invisible,  but  who  presently 
gave  a  toss  of  his  clustering  locks  which  was  equivalent  to 
a  master's  signature.  A  moment's  reflection  satisfied  him 
of  the  identity  of  the  lady.  He  had  been  unjust  to  poor 
Assunta,  sitting  patient  in  the  gloomy  arena ;  she  had  not 
come  on  her  own  errand.  Rowland's  discoveries  made  him 
hesitate.  Should  he  retire  as  noiselessly  as  possible,  or 
should  he  call  out  a  friendly  good  morning  1  While  he 
was  debating  the  question  he  found  himself  hearing  his 
friend's  words.  They  were  of  such  a  nature  as  to  make 
him  unwilling  to  retreat,  and  yet  to  make  it  awkward  to 
be  discovered  in  a  position  where  it  would  be  apparent 
that  he  had  been  an  auditor, 

"If  what  you  say  is  true,"  said  Christina,  with  her 
usual  soft  deliberateness — it  made  her  words  rise  with 
peculiar  distinctness  to  Rowland's  ear — "you  are  simply 
weak.  I  am  sorry  !  I  hoped — I  really  believed — you 
were  not." 

"  No,  I  am  not  weak,"  answered  Roderick  with  vehe- 
mence ;  "  I  maintain  that  I  am  not  weak  !  I  am  incomplete 
perhaps  ;  but  I  can't  help  that.  Weakness  is  a  man's  own 
fault ! " 

"  Ihcomplete  then  ! "  said  Christina  with  a  laugh.  "  It's 
'-fdk\i,'  same  thing,  so  long  as  it  keeps  you  from  splendid 
•achievement.  Is  it  written  then  that  I  shall  really  never 
know  what  I  have  so  often  dreamed  of  1  " 

"'What  have  you  dreamed  of  1  " 

"A  man  whom  I  can  perfectly  respect,"  cried  the 
young  girl  with  a  sudden  flame.  "  A  man  whom  I  can 
Tinres^Ti^edly  admire !     I  meet  one,  as  I  have  met  more 


172  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

than  one  before,  whom  I  fondly  believe  to  be  cast  in  a 
larger  mould  than  most  of  the  vulgar  human  breed — to  be 
large  in  character,  great  in  talent,  strong  in  will  !  In  such 
a  man  as  that,  I  say,  one's  weary  imagination  at  last  may 
rest ;  or  it  may  wander  if  it  will,  yet  never  need  to  wander 
far  from  the  deeps  where  one's  heart  is  anchored.  When  I 
first  knew  you  I  gave  no  sign,  but  you  had  struck  me.  I 
observed  you  as  women  observe,  and  I  fancied  you  had  the 
sacred  fire." 

"  Before  Heaven  I  believe  I  have  !  "  cried  Roderick. 

"Ah,  but  so  little!  It  tiickers  and  trembles  and 
sputters ;  it  goes  out,  you  tell  me,  for  whole  weeks  to- 
gether. From  your  own  account  it's  highly  probable  that 
you  are  a  failure." 

"  I  say  those  things  sometimes  myself,  but  when  I  hear 
you  say  them  they  make  me  feel  as  if  I  could  do  all  sorts 
of  great  things." 

*'  Ah,  the  man  who  is  strong  with  what  I  call  strength," 
Christina  replied,  "  would  neither  rise  nor  fall  by  anything 
I  could  say  !  I  am  a  poor  weak  woman ;  I  have  no  strength 
myself,  and  I  can  give  no  strength.  I  am  a  miserable 
medley  of  vanity  and  folly.  I  am  silly,  I  am  ignorant, 
I  am  affected,  I  am  false.  I  am  the  fruit  of  a  horrible 
education  sown  on  a  worthless  soil.  I  am  all  that,  and  yet 
I  believe  I  have  one  merit  !  I  should  know  a  great 
character  when  I  saw  it,  and  I  should  delight  in  it  with  a 
generosity  which  would  do  something  towards  the  remission 
of  my  sins.  For  a  man  who  should  really  give  me  a  certain 
feeling — I  have  never  had  it,  but  I  should  know  it  when  it 
came — I  would  send  Prince  Casamassima  and  his  millions 
to  perdition.  I  don't  know  what  you  think  of  me  for 
saying  all  this ;  I  suppose  we  have  not  climbed  up  here 
under  the  skies  to  play  propriety.  Why  have  you  been  at 
such  pains  to  assure  me  after  all  that  you  are  a  little  man 
and  not  a  great  one,  a  weak  one  and  not  a  strong  1  I 
innocently  imagined  that  your  eyes  declared  you  ^c^.r^ 
strong.  But  your  voice  condemns  you ;  I  always  wondered 
at  it ;  it's  not  the  voice  of  a  conqueror  !  " 

"  Give  me  something  to  conquer,"  cried  Roderick,  "  and 
when  I  say  that  I  thank  you  from  my  soul,  my  voice, 
whatever  you  think  of  it,  shall  speak  the  truth  !  "'    • 

Christina  for  a  moment  said  nothing.     Rowland  was  too 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  173 

interested  to  think  of  moving.  **  You  pretend  to  such 
devotion,"  she  went  on,  "  and  yet  I  am  sure  you  have 
never  really  chosen  between  me  and  that  person  in 
America." 

"  Do  me  the  favour  not  to  speak  of  her,"  said  Roderick 
imploringly. 

"  Why  not  1  I  say  no  ill  of  her,  and  I  think  all  kinds 
of  good.  I  am  certain  she  is  a  far  better  girl  than  I,  and 
far  more  likely  to  make  you  happy." 

"  This  is  happiness,  this  present  palpable  moment,"  said 
Roderick  ;  "  though  you  have  such  a  genius  for  saying  the 
things  that  torture  me  !  " 

"  It's  greater  happiness  than  you  deserve  then  !  You 
have  never  chosen,  I  say ;  you  have  been  afraid  to  choose. 
You  have  never  really  looked  in  the  face  the  fact  that  you 
are  false,  that  you  have  broken  your  faith.  You  have  never 
looked  at  it  and  seen  that  it  was  hideous,  and  yet  said, 
'  No  matter,  1  will  brave  the  penalty,  I  will  bear  the 
shame  ! '  You  have  closed  your  eyes ;  you  have  tried  to 
stifle  remembrance,  to  persuade  yourself  that  you  were  not 
behaving  so  badly  as  you  seemed  to  be,  that  there  would 
be  some  way  after  all  of  doing  what  you  liked  and  yet 
escaping  trouble.  You  have  faltered  and  drifted,  you  have 
gone  on  from  accident  to  accident,  and  I  am  sure  that  at 
this  present  moment  you  can't  tell  what  it  is  you  really 
desire !  " 

Roderick  was  sitting  with  his  knees  drawn  up  and  bent, 
and  his  hands  clasped  round  his  legs.  He  bent  his  head 
and  rested  his  forehead  on  his  knees. 

Christina  went  on  with  a  sort  of  infernal  calmness.  "  I 
believe  that  really  you  don't  greatly  care  for  your  friend 
in  America  any  more  than  you  do  for  me  1  You  are  one 
of  the  men  who  care  only  for  themselves  and  for  what  they 
can  make  of  themselves.  That's  very  well  when  they  can 
make  something  great,  and  I  could  interest  myself  in  a 
man  of  extraordinary  power  who  should  wish  to  turn  all 
his  passions  to  account.  But  if  the  power  should  turn  out 
to  be  after  all  rather  ordinary?  Fancy  feeling  one's  self 
ground  in  the  mill  of  a  third-rate  talent !  If  you  have 
doubts  about  yourself  I  can't  reassure  you  ;  I  have  too 
many  doubts  myself  about  everything  in  this  weary  world. 
YYou  have  gone  up  like  a  rocket  in  your  profession  they 


174  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

toll  me  ;  are  you  going  to  come  down  like  the  stick  ?__  I 
don't  pretend  to  know ;  I  repeat  frankly  what  I  have 
said  before— that  all  modern  sculpture  teems  to  me  vulgar, 
and  that  the  only  things  I  care  for  are  some  of  the  most 
battered  of  the  antiques  of  the  Vatican.  No,  no,  I  can't 
reassure  you  ;  and  when  you  tell  me — with  a  confidence 
in  my  discretion  of  which  certainly  I  am  duly  sensible — 
that  at  times  you  feel  terribly  small,  why,  I  can  only 
answer,  *  Ah  then,  my  poor  friend,  I  am  afraid  you  are 
small  I  '  The  language  I  should  like  to  hear,  from 
a  certain  person,  would  be  the  language  of  absolute 
decision." 

Roderick  raised  his  head,  but  he  said  nothing ;  he 
seemed  to  be  exchanging  a  long  glance  with  his  companion. 
The  result  of  it  was  to  make  him  fling  himself  b;\ck  with 
an  inarticulate  murmur.  Rowland,  admonished  by  the 
silence,  was  on  the  point  of  turning  away,  but  he  was 
arrested  by  a  gesture  of  the  young  girl.  She  pointed 
for  a  moment  into  the  blue  air.  Roderick  followed  the 
direction  of  her  gesture. 

"  Is  that  little  flower  we  see  outlined  against  that  dark 
niche,"  she  asked,  "  as  intensely  blue  as  it  looks  through 
my  veil  1 "  She  spoke  apparently  with  the  amiable 
design  of  directing  the  conversation  into  a  less  painful 
channel. 

Rowland,  from  where  he  stood,  could  see  the  flower  she 
meant — a  delicate  plant  of  radiant  hue,  which  sprouted 
from  the  top  of  an  immense  fragment  of  wall  some  twenty 
feet  from  Christina's  place. 

Roderick  turned  his  head  and  looked  at  it  without 
an.-wering.  At  last  glancing  round,  "  Put  up  your  veil !  " 
he  said,  Christina  complied.  "  Does  it  look  as  blue  now  }  " 
he  asked. 

"  Ah,  what  a  lovely  colour !  "  she  murmured,  leaning 
her  head  on  one  side. 

"  Should  you  like  to  have  it  ?  " 

She  stared  a  moment  and  then  broke  into  a  loud  laugh. 

"  Should  you  like  to  have  it  1  "  he  repeated  in  a  ringing 
voice. 

"  Don't  look  as  if  you  would  eat  me  up,"  she  answered. 
"It's  harmless  if  I  say  yes  1  " 

Roderick  rose  to  his  feet  and  stood  looking  at  the  little 


RODEKICK  HUDSON.  175 

flower.  It  was  separated  from  the  ledge  on  which  he  stood 
by  a  rugged  surface  of  vertical  wall,  which  dropped  straight 
into  the  dusky  vaults  behind  the  arena.  Suddenly  he  took 
off  his  hat  and  flung  it  behind  him.  Christina  then  sprang 
to  her  feet. 

"  I  will  bring  it  to  you,"  he  said. 

She  seized  his  arm.  "  Are  you  crazy  ?  Do  you  mean  to 
kill  yourself]" 

"  I  shall  not  kill  myself .     Sit  down  !  " 

"  Excuse  me.  Not  till  you  do  1  "  and  she  grasped  his  arm 
with  both  hands. 

Roderick  shook  her  off  and  pointed  with  a  violent  gesture 
to  her  former  place.     "  Go  there  1  "  he  cried  fiercely. 

•'  You  can  never,  never !  "  she  murmured  beseechingly, 
clasping  her  hands.     "  I  implore  you  !  " 

Roderick  turned  and  looked  at  her,  and  then  in  a  voice 
which  Rowland  had  never  heard  him  use,  a  voice  almost 
thunderous,  a  voice  which  awakened  the  echoes  of  the 
mighty  ruin,  he  repeated,  "  Sit  down  !  "  She  hesitated  a 
moment,  and  then  she  dropped  on  the  ground  and  buried 
her  face  in  her  hands. 

Rowland  had  seen  all  this,  and  he  saw  what  followed. 
He  saw  Roderick  clasp  in  his  left  arm  the  jagged  corner 
of  the  vertical  partition  on  which  he  proposed  to  try  his 
experiment,  then  stretch  out  his  leg  and  feel  for  a 
resting-place  for  his  foot.  Rowland  had  measured  with 
a  glance  the  possibility  of  his  holding  on  and  pronounced 
it  uncommonly  small.  The  wall  was  garnished  with  a 
series  of  narrow  projections,  the  remains  apparently  of  a 
brick  cornice  supporting  the  arch  of  a  vault  which  had 
long  since  collapsed.  It  was  by  lodging  his  toes  on  these 
loose  brackets  and  grasping  with  his  hands  at  certain 
mouldering  protuberances  on  a  level  with  his  head  that 
Roderick  intended  to  proceed.  The  relics  of  the  cornice 
were  utterly  worthless  as  a  support.  Rowland  had  ob- 
served this,  and  yet  for  a  moment  he  had  hesitated.  If 
the  thing  were  possible  he  felt  a  sudden  admiring  glee  at 
the  thought  of  Roderick's  doing  it.  It  would  be  finely 
done,  it  would  be  gallant,  it  would  have  a  sort  of  masculine 
eloquence  as  an  answer  to  Christina's  sinister  'persiflage. 
But  it  was  not  possible  !  Rowland  left  his  place  with 
a  bound  and  scrambled  down  some  neighbouring  steps,  and 


176  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  next  moment  a  stronger  pair  of  hands  than  Christina's 
were  laid  upon  Roderick's  shoulder. 

He  turned,  staring,  pale  and  angry.  Christina  rose, 
])ale  and  staring  too,  but  beautiful  in  her  wonder  and 
alarm.  "  My  dear  Roderick,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  am  only 
preventing  you  from  doing  a  very  foolish  thing.  That's 
an  exploit  for  spiders,  not  for  young  sculptors  of 
promise." 

Roderick  wiped  his  forehead,  looked  back  at  the  wall,  and 
then  closed  his  eyes,  as  if  with  a  spasm  of  retarded  dizzi- 
ness. "  I  won't  resist  you,"  he  said.  "  But  I  have  made 
you  obey,"  he  added,  turning  to  Christina.  "  Am  I  weak 
nowT' 

She  had  recovered  her  composure ;  she  looked  straight 
past  him  and  addressed  Rowland.  **  Be  so  good  as  to 
show  me  the  way  out  of  this  horrible  place  !  " 

He  helj)ed  her  back  into  the  corridor  ;  Roderick  followed 
after  a  short  interval.  Of  course,  as  they  were  descending 
the  steps,  came  questions  for  Rowland  to  answer,  and  more 
or  less  surprise.  Where  had  he  come  from  ?  how  happened 
he  to  have  appeared  at  just  that  moment?  Rowland 
answered  that  he  had  been  rambling  overhead  and  that, 
looking  out  of  an  aperture,  he  had  seen  a  gentleman  prepar- 
ing to  undertake  a  preposterous  gymnastic  feat  and  a  lady 
swooning  away  in  consequence.  Interference  seemed  justi- 
fiable and  he  had  made  it  as  prompt  as  possible.  Roderick 
was  far  from  hancjinor  his  head  like  a  man  who  has  been 
caught  in  the  perpetration  of  an  extravagant  folly  ;  but 
if  he  held  it  more  erect  than  usual  Rowland  believed  that 
this  was  much  less  because  he  had  made  a  show  of  personal 
daring  than  because  he  had  tnumphantly  proved  to  Christina 
that  like  a  certain  person  she  had  dreamed  of  he  too  could 
speak  the  language  of  decision.  Christina  descended  to 
the  arena  in  silence,  apparently  occupied  with  her  own 
thoughts.  She  betrayed  no  sense  of  the  privacy  of  her 
interview  with  Roderick  needing  an  explanation  ;  she 
seemed  to  imply  that  Rowland  had  seen  stranger  things 
in  New  York.  The  only  evidence  of  her  recent  agitation 
was  that  on  being  joined  by  her  maid  she  declared  that 
she  was  unable  to  walk  home — she  must  have  a  carriage. 
A  fiacre  was  found  resting  in  the  shadow  of  the  Arch  of 
Constantine,  and  Rowland  suspected  that  after  she  had  got 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  177 

into  it  she  disburdened  herself  under  her  veil  of  a  few- 
natural  tears. 

Rowland  had  played  eavesdropper  to  so  good  a  purpose 
that  he  might  justly  have  omitted  the  ceremony  of  de- 
nouncing himself  to  Roderick.  lie  preferred  however  to 
let  him  know  that  he  had  overheard  a  portion  of  his  talk 
with  Christina. 

"  Of  coarse  it  seems  to  you,"  Roderick  said,  "  a  proof 
that  I  am  thoroughly  infatuated." 

"  Miss  Light  seemed  to  me  to  know  very  well  how  far 
she  could  go,"  Rowland  answered.  "She  was  twisting  you 
round  her  finger.  I  don't  think  she  exactly  meant  to  defy 
you  ;  but  your  preposterous  attemjot  to  pluck  the  flower 
was  a  proof  that  she  could  go  all  lengths  in  the  way  of 
making  a  fool  of  you." 

"  Yes,"  said  Roderick,  meditatively ;  "  she  is  making 
a  fool  of  me." 

"  And  what  do  you  expect  to  come  of  it  ?  " 

"  Nothing  good  !  "  And  Roderick  put  his  hands  into  his 
pockets  and  looked  as  if  he  had  announced  the  most 
colourless  fact  in  the  world. 

"  And  in  the  light  of  your  late  interview,  what  do  you 
make  of  your  young  lady  %  " 

"  If  I  could  tell  you  that,  it  would  be  plain  sailing.  But 
she  will  not  tell  me  again  I  am  weak  !  " 

"  Are  you  very  sure  you  are  not  weak  ^  " 

"  I  may  be,  but  she  shall  never  dare — she  shall  never 
care — to  say  it !  " 

Rowland  said  no  more  until  they  reached  the  Corso, 
when  he  asked  his  companion  whether  he  were  going  to 
his  studio. 

Roderick  started  out  of  a  reverie  and  passed  his  hands 
over  his  eyes.  "  Oh  no,  I  can't  settle  down  to  work  after 
such  a  scene  as  that.  I  was  not  afraid  of  breaking  my 
neck  then,  but  I  feel  in  a  devil  of  a  tremor  now.  I  will  go 
— I  will  go  and  sit  in  the  sun  on  the  Pincio  !  " 

"  Promise  me  this  first,"  said  Rowland  very  solemnly — 
"  that  the  next  time  you  meet  Miss  Light  it  shall  be  on 
the  earth  and  not  in  the  air  !  " 

Since  his  return  from  Frascati  Roderick  had  been  work- 
ing doggedly  at  the  statue  ordered  by  Mr.  Leavenworth. 
To  Rowland's  eye  he  had  made  a  very  fair  beginning,  but 


178  RODEPJCK  HUDSON. 

he  had  himself  insisted  from  the  tirst  that  he  liked  neither 
his  subject  nor  his  patron,  and  that  it  was  impossible  to 
feel  any  warmth  of  interest  in  a  work  which  was  to  be  in- 
corporated into  the  ponderous  personality  of  Mr.  Leaven- 
worth. It  was  all  against  the  grain  ;  he  wrought  without 
love.  Nevertheless  after  a  fashion  he  wrought,  and  the 
figure  grew  beneath  his  hands.  Miss  Blanchard's  friend 
was  ordering  works  of  art  on  every  side,  and  his  purveyors 
were  in  many  cases  persons  whom  Roderick  declared  it  was 
an  infamy  to  be  associated  with.  There  had  been  famous 
tailors,  he  said,  who  declined  to  make  you  a  coat  unless 
you  should  get  the  hat  you  were  to  wear  with  it  from  an 
artist  of  their  own  choosing.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he 
had  an  equal  right  to  exact  that  his  statue  should  not 
form  part  of  the  same  system  of  ornament  as  the  "  Pearl 
of  Perugia,"  a  picture  by  an  American  confrere  who  had 
in  Mr.  Leavenworth's  opinion  a  prodigious  eye  for  colour. 
As  a  liberal  customer,  Mr.  Leavenworth  used  to  drop  into 
Roderick's  studio  to  see  how  things  were  getting  on,  and 
give  a  friendly  hint  or  exert  an  enlightened  control.  He 
would  seat  himself  squarely,  plant  his  gold-topped  c.me 
between  his  legs,  which  he  held  very  much  apart,  rest  his 
large  white  hands  on  the  head,  and  enunciate  the  principles 
of  spiritual  art — a  species  of  fluid  wisdom  which  appeared 
to  rise  in  bucketfuls,  as  he  turned  the  crank,  from  the 
well -like  depths  of  his  moral  consciousness.  His  benignant 
and  imperturbable  pomposity  gave  Roderick  the  sense  of 
suffocating  beneath  an  immense  feather-bed,  and  the  worst 
of  the  matter  was  that  the  good  gentleman's  placid  vanity 
had  an  integument  impenetrable  to  sarcastic  shaftsT] 
Roderick  admitted  that  in  thinking  over  the  tribulations 
of  struggling  genius  the  danger  of  dying  of  too  much 
attention  had  never  occurred  to  him. 

The  deterring  effect  of  the  episode  of  the  Coliseum  w^s 
apparently  of  long  continuance  ;  if  Roderick's  nerves  had 
been  shaken  his  hand  needed  time  to  recover  its  steadiness. 
He  cultivated  composure  upon  principles  of  his  own ;  by 
frequenting  entertainments  from  which  he  returned  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  lapsing  into  habits  which  might 
fairly  be  called  irregular.  He  had  hitherto  made  few 
friends  among  the  artistic  fraternity ;  chiefly  because  he 
had    taken    no    trouble    about    it,  and    there   was  in    his 


RODERICK  HUDSON  179 

demeanour  an  elastic  independence  of  the  favour  of  his 
fellow-mortals  which  made  social  advances  on  his  own  part 
peculiarly  necessary.  Rowland  had  told  him  more  than 
once  that  he  ought  to  fraternise  a  trifle  more  with  the 
other  artists,  and  he  had  always  answered  that  he  had  not 
the  smallest  objection  to  fraternising :  let  them  come ! 
But  they  came  on  rare  occasions,  and  Roderick  was  not 
punctilious  about  returning  their  visits.  He  declared  there 
was  not  one  of  them  the  fruits  of  whose  genius  gave  him 
the  least  desire  to  delve  in  the  parent  soil.  For  Gloriani 
he  professed  an  ineffable  contempt,  and  having  been  once 
to  look  at  his  wares  never  crossed  his  threshold  again.  The 
only  one  of  the  fraternity  for  whom  by  his  own  admission 
he  cared  a  straw  was  little  Singleton ;  but  he  took  an 
exclusively  facetious  view  of  this  humble  genius  whenever 
he  encountered  him,  and  quite  forgot  his  existence  in  the 
intervals.  He  had  never  been  to  see  him,  but  Singleton 
edged  his  way  from  time  to  time  timidly  into  Roderick's 
studio  and  agreed  with  characteristic  modesty  that  brilliant 
fellows  like  Hudson  might  consent  to  receive  homage  but 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  render  it.  Roderick  never 
acknowledged  applause,  and  apparently  failed  to  observe 
whether  poor  Singleton  spoke  in  admiration  or  in  blame. 
Roderick's  taste  as  to  companions  was  singularly. capricious. 
There  were  very  good  fellows  that  were  disposed  to  cultivate 
him  who  bored  him  to  death  ;  and  there  were  others  in 
whom  even  Rowland's  good-nature  was  unable  to  discover 
a  pretext  for  tolerance  in  whom  he  appeared  to  find  the 
highest  social  qualities.  He  gave  the  most  fantastic  reason-s 
for  his  likes  and  dislikes.  He  would  declare  he  could  not 
speak  a  civil  word  to  a  man  who  brushed  his  hair  in  a 
certain  fashion,  and  he  would  explain  his  unaccountable 
fancy  for  an  individual  of  imperceptible  merit  by  telling 
you  that  he  had  an  ancestor  who  in  the  thirteenth  century 
had  walled  up  his  wife  alive.  "  I  like  to  talk  to  a  man 
whose  ancestor  has  walled  up  his  wife  alive,"  he  would  say. 

*'  You  may  not  see  the  fun  of  it,  and  think  poor  P 

is  a  very  dull  fellow.  It's  very  possible  ;  I  don't  ask  you 
to  admire  him.  But  for  reasons  of  my  own  I  like  to  see 
him  aboat.  The  old  fellow  left  her  for  three  days  with  her 
face  uncovered  and  placed  a  looking-glass  opposite  to  her, 
so  that  she  could  see,  as  he  said,  if  her  gown  was  a  fit !  " 

M  2 


180  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

His  relish  for  an  odd  flavour  in  his  friends  had  led  him 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  number  of  people  outside 
of  Rowland's  well-ordered  circle,  and  he  made  no  secret 
of  their  being  very  queer  fish.  He  formed  an  intimacy, 
among  others,  with  a  crazy  fellow  who  had  come  to  Rome 
as  an  emissary  of  one  of  the  Central  American  republics, 
to  drive  some  ecclesiastical  bargain  with  the  papal  govern- 
ment. The  Pope  had  given  him  the  cold  shoulder,  but 
since  he  had  not  prospered  as  a  diplomatist  he  had  sought 
compensation  as  a  man  of  the  world,  and  his  great  flam- 
boyant curricle  and  negro  lackeys  were  for  several  weeks 
one  of  the  striking  ornaments  of  the  Pincian.  He  spoke 
a  queer  jargon  of  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  and  English, 
humorously  relieved  with  scraps  of  ecclesiastical  Latin, 
and  to  those  who  inquired  of  Roderick  what  he  found  to 
interest  him  in  this  pretentious  jackanapes,  the  latter 
would  reply,  looking  at  his  interlocutor  with  his  lucid 
blue  eyes,  that  it  was  worth  any  sacrifice  to  hear  him 
talk  nonsense  !  The  two  had  gone  together  one  night  to 
a  ball  given  by  a  lady  of  some  renown  in  the  Spanish 
colony,  and  very  late,  on  his  way  home,  Roderick  came  up 
to  Rowland's  rooms,  in  the  windows  of  which  he  had  seen 
a  light,  Rowland  was  going  to  bed,  but  Roderick  flung 
himself  into  an  arm-chair  and  chattered  for  an  hour.  The 
friends  of  the  Costa  Rican  envoy  were  as  amusing  as  him- 
self, and  in  very  much  the  same  line.  The  mistress  of  the 
house  had  worn  a  yellow  satin  dress  and  gold  heels  on  her 
slippers,  and  at  the  close  of  the  entertainment  had  sent 
for  a  pair  of  castanets,  tucked  up  her  petticoats  and  danced 
a  fandango,  while  the  gentlemen  sat  cross-legged  on  the 
floor.  *'  It  Avas  awfully  low,"  Roderick  said  ;  "  all  of  a 
sudden  I  perceived  it  and  bolted.  Nothing  of  that  kind 
ever  amuses  me  to  the  end  ;  before  it's  half  over  it  bores 
me  to  death  ;  it  makes  me  sick.  Hang  it,  why  can't  a 
poor  fellow  enjoy  things  in  peace  1  My  illusions  are  all 
broken-winded ;  they  won't  carry  me  twenty  paces !  I 
can't  laugh  and  forget ;  my  laugh  dies  away  before  it 
begins.  Your  friend  Stendhal  writes  on  his  book-covers 
(I  never  got  further)  that  he  has  seen  too  early  in  life 
la  heaute  parfaite.  I  don't  know  how  early  he  saw  it ;  I 
saw  it  before  I  was  born — in  another  state  of  being  !  I 
can't  describe  it  positively ;  I  can  only  say  I  don't  find  it 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  181 

anywhere  now.  Not  at  the  bottom  of  champagne  glasses  ; 
not,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  that  extra  half-yard  or  so 
of  shoulder  that  some  women  have  their  ball-dresses  cut 
to  expose.  I  don't  find  it  at  noisy  supper-tables  where 
half  a  dozen  ugly  men  with  pomatumed  heads  are  rapidly 
growing  uglier  still  with  heat  and  wine  ;  nor  when  I  come 
away  and  walk  through  these  squalid  black  streets  and  go 
out  into  the  Forum  and  see  a  few  old  battered  stone  posts 
standing  there  like  gnawed  bones  stuck  into  the  earth. 
Everything  is  mean  and  dusky  and  shabby,  and  the  men 
and  women  who  make  up  this  so-called  brilliant  society 
are  the  meanest  and  shabbiest  of  all.  They  have  no  real 
spontaneity  ;  they  are  nothing  but  parrots  and  popinjciys. 
They  have  no  more  dignity  than  so  many  grasshoppers. 
Nothing  is  good  but  one  !  "  And  he  jumped  up  and  stood 
looking  at  one  of  his  statues,  which  shone  vaguely  across 
the  room  in  the  dim  lamplight. 

"Yes,  do  tell  us,"  said  Rowland,  "what  to  hold  on 
by  ! " 

"  Those  things  of  mine  were  tolerably  good,"  he  answered. 
"  But  my  idea  was  better — and  that's  what  I  mean  !  " 

Rowland  said  nothing.  He  was  willing  to  wait  for 
Roderick  to  complete  the  circle  of  his  metamorphoses,  but 
he  had  no  desire  to  oflSciate  as  chorus  to  the  play. 

"You  think  I  have  the  'cheek'  of  the  devil  himself," 
the  latter  said  at  last,  "  coming  up  to  moralise  at  this  hour 
of  the  night !  You  think  I  want  to  throw  dust  into  your 
eyes,  to  put  you  off  the  scent.  That's  your  eminently 
rational  view  of  the  case." 

"  Excuse  me  from  taking  any  view  at  all,"  said  Roav- 
lond. 

"  You  have  given  me  up,  then  1  " 

"  No,  I  have  merely  suspended  judgment.  I  am  wait- 
ing." 

Roderick  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  What  are  you 
waiting  for  ?  " 

Rowland  made  an  angry  gesture.  "  Oh,  miserable  boy ! 
When  you  have  hit  your  mark  and  made  people  care  for 
you,  you  shouldn't  twist  your  weapon  about  at  that  rate 
in  their  vitals.  Allow  me  to  say  I  am  sleepy.  Good 
night  !  " 


182  KODEIIICK  HUDSON. 


XIV. 


\  Some  days  afterwards  it  happened  that  Rowland,  on  a  long 
afternoon  ramble,  took  his  way  through  one  of  the  quiet 
corners  of  the  Trastevere.  He  was  particularly  fond  of  this 
part  of  Kome,  though  he  could  hardly  have  expressed  the 
charm  he  found  in  it.  As  you  pass  away  from  the  dusky 
swarming  purlieus  of  the  Ghetto,  you  einerge  intcja  region 
of  empty,  soundless,  grass-grown  lanes  and  alleys,  where  the 
shabby  houses  seem  mouldering  away  in  disuse  and  yet 
your  footstep  brings  figures  of  startling  Koman  type  to  the 
doorways.  There  are  few  monuments  here,  but  no  part 
of  Rome  seemed  more  historic,  in  the  sense  of  being 
weighted  with  a  ponderous  past,  blighted  with  the  melan- 
choly of  things  that  had  had  their  day.  When  the  yellow 
afternoon  sunshine  slept  on  the  sallow  battered  walls 
and  lengthened  the  shadows  in  the  grassy  courtyards  of 
small  closed  churches  the  place  acquired  a  strange  fascina- 
tion^ The  church  of  St.  Cecilia  has  one  of  these  sunny 
waste-looking  courts ;  the  edifice  seems  abandoned  to 
silence  and  the  charity  of  chance  devotion.  Rowland 
never  passed  it  without  going  in,  and  he  was  generally 
the  only  visitor.  He  entered  it  now,  but  he  found  that 
two  persons  had  preceded  him.  Both  were  women.  One 
was  at  her  prayers  at  one  of  the  side-altars  ;  the  other 
was  seated  against  a  column  at  the  upper  end  of  the  nave. 
Rowland  walked  to  the  altar  and  paid  in  a  momentary 
glance  at  the  clever  statue  of  the  saint  in  death  in  the 
niche  beneath  it  the  usual  tribute  to  the  charm  of  polished 
ingenuity.  As  he  turned  away  he  looked  at  the  person 
seated  and  recognised  Christina  Light,  Seeing  that  she 
perceived  him  he  advanced  to  speak  to  her. 

She  was  sitting  in  a  listless  attitude,  with  her  hands 
in  her  lap ;  she  seemed  to  be  tired.  She  was  dressed  very 
simply,  as  if  for  walking  and  escaping  observation.  When 
he  had  greeted  her  he  glanced  back  at  her  companion  and 
recognised  the  faithful  Assunta. 

Christina  smiled.  "  Are  you  looking  for  Mr.  Hudson  ] 
He  is  not  here  I  am  happy  to  say." 


TvODERICK  HUDSON.  183 

"  If  he  were  here  one  might  understand,"  said  llowland. 
*'  This  is  a  strange  place  to  find  you  alone." 

"  Not  at  all  !  People  call  me  a  strange  girl,  and  I  might 
as  well  have  the  comfort  of  it.  I  came  to  take  a  walk  ; 
that  by  the  way  is  part  of  my  strangeness.  I  can't  loll 
all  the  morning  on  a  sofa  and  sit  perched  all  the  afternoon 
in  a  carriage.  I  get  horribly  restless ;  I  must  move ;  1 
must  do  something  and  see  something.  Mamma  suggests 
a  cup  of  tea.  Meanwhile  I  put  on  an  old  dress  and  half  a 
dozen  veils,  I  take  Assunta  under  my  arm  and  we  start  on  a 
pedestrian  tour.  It's  a  bore  that  I  can't  take  the  poodle, 
but  he  attracts  attention.  We  tradge  about  everywhere  ; 
there  is  nothing  I  like  so  much.  I  hope  you  will  con- 
gratulate me  on  the  simplicity  of  my  tastes." 

"I  congmtulate  you  on  your  wisdom.  To  live  in  Rome 
and  not  to  walk  about  would,  I  think,  be  poor  pleasure. 
But  you  are  terribly  far  from  home,  and  I  am  afraid  you 
are  tired." 

"  A  little — enough  to  sit  here  a  while." 
"  Might  I  offer  you  my  company  while  you  rest  1  " 
"If  you  will  promise  to    amuse  me.     I  am  in   dismal 
spirits." 

Saying  he  would  do  what  he  could,  llowland  brought  a 
chair  and  placed  it  near  her.  He  was  not  in  love  with  her  ; 
he  disapproved  of  her  ;  he  distrusted  her ;  and  yet  he  felt 
it  a  kind  of  privilege  to  watch  her  and  he  found  a  peculiar 
excitement  in  talking  to  her.  /The  background  of  her 
nature,  as  he  would  have  called  it,  was  large  and  mysteri- 
ous, and  it  emitted  strange  fantastic  gleams  and  flashes. 
Watching  for  these  rather  quickened  one's  pulses.  More- 
over it  was  not  a  disadvantage  to  talk  to  a  girl  who 
mide  one  keep  guard  on  one's  composure  ;  it  diminished 
one's  usual  liability  to  utter  something  less  than  revised 
wisdom. 

Assunta  had  risen  from  her  prayers,  and  as  he  took  his 
place  was  coming  back  to  her  mistress.  But  Christina 
motioned  her  away.  "  No,  no ;  while  you  are  about  it 
say  a  few  dozen  more  !  "  she  said.  "  Pray  for  me,"  she 
added  in  English.  "  Pray  that  I  say  nothing  silly.  She 
has  been  at  it  half  an  hour ;  I  envy  her  volubility  !  " 
''•  One  often  envies  good  Catholics,"  said  llowland. 
"  Oh,  speak  to  me  of  that ;  I  have  been  through  that 


184  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

too  !  There  was  a  time  when  I  wanted  immensely  to  be  a 
nun  ;  it  was  not  a  laughing  matter.  It  was  when  I  was 
about  sixteen  yeai:a.old.  1  read  the  Imitation  and  the  Life 
of  :St.  CatJcerlne.  I  fully  believed  in  the  miracles  of  the 
saints,  and  I  was  dying  to  have  one  of  my  own — little  of 
a  saint  as  I  was  !  The  least  little  accident  that  could  have 
been  twisted  into  a  miracle  would  have  carried  me  straight 
into  the  cloister,  1  had  the  real  religious  passion.  It 
passed  away,  and  as  I  sat  here  jusG  now  I  was  wondering 
what  has  become  of  it !  " 

Rowland  had  already  been  sensible  of  something  in  this 
young  lady's  tone  which  he  would  have  called  a  want  of 
veracity,  and  this  epitome  of  her  religious  experience  failed 
to  strike  him  as  absolutely  historical.  But  the  tr^iit  was 
not  disagreeable,  for  she  herself  was  evidently  the  foremost 
dupe  of  her  inventions.  She  had  a  fictitious  history  in 
which  she  believed  much  more  fondly  than  in  her  real 
one,  and  an  iniiuite  capacity  for  extemporised  reminiscence 
adapted  to  the  mood  of  the  hour.  She  liked  to  idealise 
herself,  to  take  interesting  and  picturesque  attitudes  to 
her  own  imagination  ;  and  the  vivacity  and  spontaneity 
of  her  character  gave  her  really  a  starting-point  in  experi- 
ence, so  that  the  many-coloured  flowers  of  fiction  which 
blossomed  in  her  talk  were  not  so  much  perversions  as 
sympathetic  exaggerations  of  factj  And  Rowland  felt  that 
whatever  she  said  of  herself  might  have  been,  under  the 
imagined  circumstances ;  energy  was  there,  audacity,  the 
restless  questioning  temperament.  "  I  am  afraid  I  am 
sadly  prosaic,"  he  said,  "  for  in  these  many  months  now  that 
I  have  been  in  Rome  I  have  never  ceased  for  a  moment 
to  look  at  Catholicism  simjDly  from  the  outside.  I  don"t 
see  an  opening  as  big  as  your  finger-nail  where  I  could  creep 
into  it !  " 

"  What  do  you    believe  'I  "  asked    Christina,  looking  at 
him.      "  Are  you  religious  ?  " 
I  "  I  am  very  old  fashioned.      I  believe  in  God." 

Christina  let  her  beautiful  eyes  wander  a  while  and  then 
gave  a  little  sigh.      "  You  are  much  to  be  envied  !  " 

"  You,  I  imagine,  in  that  line  have  nothing  to  envy  me." 

"  Yes,  I  have.     Rest !  " 

"  Yon  are  too  young  to  say  that." 

'•  I    am  not  young ;    I    have    never   been    young  !     My 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  185 

mother  took  care   of    that.     I  was  a    little    wrinkled  old 
woman  at  ten." 

"  I  am  afraid,"  said  Rowland,  in  a  moment,  "  that  you 
are  fond  of  painting  yourself  in  dark  colours." 

She  looked  at  him  a  while  in  silence.  "  Do  you  wish  to 
win  my  eternal  gratitude  'i  Prove  to  me  that  I  am  better 
than  I  suppose." 

"  I  should  have  first  to  know  what  you  really  suppose." 
She  shook  her  head.     "  It  wouldn't  do  !   [You  would  be 
horrified  to  learn  even  the  things  I  imagine  about  myself, 
and  shocked  at  the  knowledge  of  evil  displayed  in  my  very 
mistakes.'^ 

"  Well,"then,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  will  ask  no  questions. 
But,  at  a  venture,  I  promise  you  to  catch  you  some  day  in 
the  act  of  doing  something  very  good." 

"  Are  you  too  trying  to  Hatter  me  ?  I  thought  you  and 
I  had  fallen  from  the  first  into  rather  a  truth-speaking 
vein." 

"  Oh,  I  have  not  given  it  up !  "  said  Rowland  ;  and  he 
determined,  since  he  had  the  credit  of  homely  directness, 
to  push  his  advantage  farther.  The  opportunity  sBemed 
excellent.  But  while  he  was  hesitating  how  to  begin, 
the  young  girl  said,  bending  forward  and  clasping  her 
hands  in  her  lap,  "  Please  tell  me  about  your  religion." 

"  Tell  you  about  it  1  I  can't !  "  said  Rowland,  with  a 
good  deal  of  emphasis. 

She  flushed  a  little.    "  Is  it  such  a  mighty  mystery  it  can- 
not be  put  into  words  nor  communicated  to  my  base  ears  1  " 
'•'  It  is  simply  a  sentiment  that  makes  part  of  my  life, 
and    I    can't    detach  myself    from   it    sufficiently    to    talk 
about  it." 

"  Religion,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  eloquent  and 
aggressive.  It  should  wish  to  make  converts,  to  persuade 
and  illumine,  to  take  possession  !  " 

"  One's  religion  takes  the  colour  of  one's  general  dis- 
position. I  am  not  aggressive,  and  certainly  I  am  not 
eloquent." 

"  Well,  I  am  sure  I  shouldn't  greatly  care  for  anything 
you  might  say,"  Christina  rejoined.      "  It  would  be  sure 
to  be  half-hearted.      You  are  not  in  the  least  contented." 
"  How  do  you  know  that  ?  " 
"  Oh,  I  am  an  observer !  " 


18()  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  No  one  is  absolutely  contented,  I  suppose — but  I 
assure  you  I  complain  of  nothing." 

"  kSo  much  the  worse  for  your  honesty  !  To  begin  with, 
you  are  in  love." 

"  You  would  not  have  me  complain  of  that  !  " 
"  And  it  doesn't  go  well.     There  are  grievous  obstacles. 
So  much  i  know  !     You  needn't  protest ;  I  ask  no  questions. 
You  will  tell  no  one — me  least  of  all.     Why  does  one  never 
see  you  1 " 

"  Why,  if  I  came  to  see  you,"  said  Rowland,  de- 
liberating, "  it  wouldn't  be,  it  couldn't  be,  for  a  trivial 
reason — because  I  had  not  been  in  a  month,  because  I  was 
passing,  because  I  admire  you.  It  would  be  because  I 
should  have  something  very  particular  to  say.  I  have  not 
come  because  I  have  been  slow  in  making  up  my  mind  to 
say  it." 

"  You  are  simply  cruel.     Something  particular,  in  this 
ocean  of  inanities?     In  common  charity,  speak!  " 
"  I  doubt  whether  you  will  like  it." 

"Oh,  I  hope  to  Heaven  it's  not  some  tribute  to  my 
charms  !  " 

"  It  may  be  called  a  tribute  to  your  reasonableness.  That 
is  one  of  your  charms  you  know.  You  perhaps  remember 
that  I  gave  you  a  hint  of  it  the  other  day  at  Frascati." 

*'  Has  it  been  hanging  lire  all  this  time  1  Explode  !  I 
promise  not  to  stoj)  my  ears." 

"It  relates  to  my  friend  Hudson."  And  Rowland 
paused.  She  was  looking  at  him  expectantly  ;  her  face 
gave  no  sign.  "  I  am  rather  disturbed  in  mind  about  him. 
He  seems  to  me  at  times  to  be  in  a  discouraging  way." 
He  paused  again,  but  Christina  said  nothing.  "  The  case 
is  simply  this,"  he  went  on.  "  It  was  by  my  advice  he 
gave  up  his  work  at  home  and  went  in  for  an  artist's  life. 
I  made  him  burn  his  ships.  I  brought  him  to  Rome,  I 
launched  him  in  the  world,  and  I  have  undertaken  to 
answer  to — to  his  mother  for  his  doing  well.  It  is  not 
such  smooth  sailing  as  it  might  be,  and  I  am  inclined  to  put 
up  prayers  for  fair  winds.  If  he  is  to  succeed,  he  must 
work — very  quietly  and  very  hard.  It  is  not  news  to  you 
I  imagine  that  Hudson  is  a  great  admirer  of  yours." 

Christina  remained  silent ;  she  turned  away  her  eyes 
with  an  air,  not  of   confusion,  but    of  deep  deliberation. 


RODEEICK  HUDSON.  187 

Surprising  frankness  had  as  a  general  thing  struck  Kow- 
land  as  the  key-note  of  her  character,  but  she  had  more 
than  once  given  him  a  suggestion  of  an  unfathomable  power 
of  calculation,  and  her  silence  now  had  something  which 
it  is  hardly  extravagant  to  call  portentous.  He  had  of 
course  asked  himself  how  far  it  was  questionable  taste 
to  inform  an  unprotected  girl,  for  the  needs  of  a  cause, 
that  another  man  admired  her  ;  the  thing  superficially  had 
an  uncomfortable  analogy  with  treating  the  young  lady 
as  a  catspaw.  But  he  decided  that  even  rigid  discretion 
is  not  bound  to  take  such  a  person  at  more  than  her  own 
valuation,  and  Christina  presently  reassured  him  as  to  the 
limits  of  her  susceptibility.  "  Mr.  Hudson  is  in  love 
with  me  !  "  she  said. 

Rowland  flinched  a  trifle.  Then — "Am  I,"  he  asked, 
"from  this  point  of  view  of  mine,  to  be  glad  or  sorry  ^  " 

"  I  don't  understand  you." 

"  Why,  is  Hudson  to  be  happy  or  unhappy  1  " 

She  hesitated  a  moment.  "  You  wish  him  to  be  great 
in  his  profession  1  And  for  that  you  consider  that  he  must 
be  happy  in  his  life  1  " 

"  Decidedly.  I  don't  say  it's  a  general  rule,  but  I  think 
it's  a  rule  for  him." 

"  So  that  if  he  were  very  happy  he  would  become  very 
great  r\ 

"  He  would  at  least  do  himself  justice." 

"  And  by  that  you  mean  a  great  deal  1  " 

"  A  great  deal.'"' 

Christina  sank  back  in  her  chair  and  rested  her  eyes  on 
the  cracked  and  polished  slabs  of  the  pavement.  At  last, 
looking  up,  "  You  have  not  forgotten,  I  suppose,  that  you 
told  me  he  was  engaged  to  be  married  ^  " 

"  By  no  means." 

"  He  is  still  engaged  then  ?  " 

"  To  the  best  of  my  belief." 

"  And  yet  you  desire  that,  as  you  say,  he  should  be  made 
happy  by  something  I  can  do  for  him  1  " 

"  What  I  desire  is  this.  That  your  great  influence  with 
him  should  be  exerted  for  his  good,  that  it  should  help 
]iim  and  not  retard  him.  Understand  me.  You  probably 
know  that  your  admirers  have  rather  a  restless  time  of  it. 
I  can  answer  for  t^yo  of  them.     You  don't  know  your  own 


188  RODERICK  HUDSON, 

mind  very  well,  I  imagine,  and  as  you  like  being  admired, 
the  poor  devil  on  whom  you  have  cast  your  spell  has  to 
pay  all  the  expenses  !  Since  we  are  really  being  frank,  I 
wonder  whether  I  might  not  say  the  great  word." 

*'  You  needn't ;  I  know  it.     I  am  a  horrible  coquette." 

"  No,  not  a  horrible  one,  since  I  am  making  an  appeal 
to  your  generosity.  I  am  pretty  sure  you  can't  imagine 
yourself  marrying  my  friend." 

'  "  There's    nothing    I    can't     imagine !       That     is     mv 
difficulty  !  "  ^ 

Rowland's  brow  contracted  impatiently.  "  I  cant 
imagine  it  then  !  " 

Christina  flushed  faintly  ;  then  very  gently — "  I  am 
not  so  bad  as  you  think,"  she  said. 

"  It  is  not  a  question  of  badness  ;  it  is  a  question  of 
whether  circumstances  don't  make  the  thing  an  extreme 
improbability." 

"  Worse  and  worse.  I  can  be  bullied,  then,  or 
bribed  ? " 

"  You  are  not  so  candid  as  you  pretend  to  be.  My 
feeling  is  this.  Hudson,  as  I  understand  him,  does  not 
need,  as  an  artist,  the  stimulus  of  strong  emotion,  of 
passion.  He  is  better  without  it ;  he  is  emotional  and 
passionate  enough  when  he  is  left  to  himself.  The  sooner 
passion  is  at  rest  therefore  the  sooner  he  will  settle  down 
to  work,  and  the  fewer  emotions  he  has  that  are  mere 
emotions  and  nothing  more,  the  better  for  him.  If  you 
cared  for  him  enough  to  marry  him,  I  should  have  nothing 
to  say  ;  I  should  never  venture  to  interfere.  But  I  strongly 
suspect  you  don't,  and  therefore  I  suggest  most  respectfully 
that  you  leave  him  alone." 

"  If  I  leave  him  alone  he  will  go  on  like  a  new  clock, 
ehV 

"  He  will  do  better.  He  will  have  no  excuses  or 
pretexts." 

"  Oh,  he  makes  me  a  pretext,  does  he  1  I  am  much 
obliged  !  "  cried  Christina,  with  a  laugh.  *'  What  is  he 
doing  now  1  " 

"  I  can  hardly  say.  He's  like  a  very  old  clock  indeed. 
He's  moody,  desultory,  idle,  irregular,  fantastic." 

'*  Heavens,  what  a  list !     And  it's  all  poor  me  1  " 

"  No,  not  all.     But  you  are  a  part  of  it,  and  I  turn  to 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  189 

you  because  you  are  a  more  tangible,  sensible,  responsible 
cause  than  the  other  things." 

Christina  raised  her  hand  to  her  eyes,  and  bent  her  head 
thoughtfully.  Rowland  was  puzzled  to  measure  the  effect 
of  his  venture ;  she  rather  surprised  him  by  her  gentleness. 
At  last,  without  moving,  "  If  I  were  to  marry  him,"  she 
asked,  "  what  would  have  become  of  his  Jiancee  ?  " 

"  I  am  bound  to  suppose  that  she  would  have  become 
extremely  unhappy." 

Christina  said  nothing  more,  and  Rowland,  to  let  her 
make  her  reflections,  left  his  place  and  strolled  away.  Poor 
Assunta,  sitting  patiently  on  a  stone  bench  and  unprovided 
on  this  occasion  with  military  consolation,  gave  him  a 
bright  frank  smile  which  might  have  been  construed  as 
an  expression  of  regret  for  herself  and  of  sympathy  for 
her  mistress.  Rowland  presently  seated  himself  again 
near  Christina. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  your  friend's  infidelity  to  that 
young  girl  in  the  little  village  'i "  she  asked  suddenly, 
looking  at  him. 

"  I  don't  like  it." 

"  "Was  he  very  much  in  love  with  her? " 

"  He  asked  her  to  marry  him.     You  may  judge." 

"  Is  she  rich  ?  " 

"  No,  she  is  poor." 

"  Is  she  very  much  in  love  with  him  ?  " 

"  I  know  her  too  little  to  say." 

She  paused  again,  and  then  resumed — "  You  have  settled 
in  your  mind  then  that  I  will  never  seriously  listen  to 
himT' 

"  I  shall  think  it  unlikely  until  the  contrary  is  proved." 

"  How  shall  it  be  proved  1  How  do  you  know  what 
passes  between  us  '?  " 

"  I  can  judge,  of  course,  but  from  appearances  ;  but, 
like  you,  I  am  no  observer.  Hudson  has  not  at  all  the 
air  of  a  happy  lover  !  " 

"  If  he  is  depressed  there  is  a  reason.  He  has  a  bad 
conscience.  One  must  hope  so  at  least.  On  the  other 
hand  simply  as  a  friend,"  she  continued,  gently,  "  you 
think  I  can  do  him  no  good  1  " 

The  humility  of  her  tone  combined  with  her  beauty  as 
she    made    this   remark  was   inexpressibly    touching,  and 


100  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Rowland  had  an  uncomfortable  sense  of  being  put  at  a 
disadvantage.  "  There  are  doubtless  many  good  things 
you  might  do  if  you  had  proper  opportunity,"  he  said. 
"  But  you  seem  to  be  sailing  with  a  current  which  leaves 
you  little  leisure  for  quiet  benevolence.  You  live  in  the 
whirl  and  hurry  of  a  world  into  which  a  poor  artist  can 
hardly  find  it  to  his  advantage  to  follow  you." 

"  Jn  plain  English  I  am  odiously  frivolous.  You  put 
it  very  generously." 

"  I  won't  hesitate  to  say  all  my  thought,"  said  Rowland. 
"  For  better  or  worse  you  seem  to  me  to  belong  both  by 
character  and  by  circumstance  to  what  is  called  the  world, 
the  great  world.  You  are  made  to  ornament  it  magni- 
ficently.    You  are  not  made  to  be  an  artist's  wife." 

"  I  see.  But  even  from  your  point  of  view  that  would 
depend  upon  the  artist.  Extraordinary  talent  might  make 
him  a  member  of  the  great  world." 

Rowland  smiled.     "That  is  very  true." 

"If,  as  it  is,"  Christina  continued  in  a  moment,  "you 
take  a  low  view  of  me — no,  you  needn't  protest — I  wonder 
what  you  would  think  if  you  knew  certain  things." 

"  What  things  do  you  mean  1  " 

"  Well,  for  example  how  I  was  brought  up.  I  have  had 
a  horrible  education.  There  must  be  some  good  in  me, 
since  I  have  perceived  it,  since  I  have  turned  and  judged 
my  circumstances." 

"My  dear  Miss  Light!"  Rowland  murmured  remon- 
strantly. 

She  gave  a  little  quick  laugh.  "You  don't  want  to 
hear  !   you  don't  want  to  have  to  think  about  that  !  " 

"  Have  I  a  right  to  1     You  needn't  justify  yourself." 

She  turned  upon  him  a  moment  the  quickened  light  of 
her  beautiful  eyes,  then  fell  to  musing  again.  "  Is  there 
not  some  novel  or  some  play,"  she  asked  at  last,  "  in  which 
a  beautiful  wicked  woman  who  has  ensnared  a  young  man 
sees  his  father  come  to  her  and  beg  her  to  let  him  go  1  " 

"  Very  likely,"  said  Rowland.     "  I  hope  she  consents." 

"  I  forget.  But  tell  me,"  she  continued,  "  shall  you 
consider — admitting  your  proposition — that  in  ceasing  to 
be  nice  to  Mr.  Hudson,  so  that  he  may  go  about  his  busi- 
ness, I  do  something  magnanimous,  heroic,  sublime — some- 
thing with  a  fine  name  like  that  1  " 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  191 

Eowland,  elated  with  the  prospect  of  gaining  his  point, 
was  about  to  reply  that  she  would  deserve  the  finest  name 
in  the  world  ;  but  he  instantly  suspected  that  this  tone 
would  not  please  her,  and  besides  it  would  not  express  his 
meaning. 

"  You  do  something  I  shall  greatly  respect,"  he  contented 
himself  with  saying. 

She  made  no  answer,  and  in  a  moment  she  beckoned  to 
her  maid.     "  What  have  I  to  do  to-day  1  "  she  asked. 

Assunta  meditated.  "  Eh,  it's  a  very  busy  day  !  For- 
tunately I  have  a  better  memory  than  the  signorina,"  she 
said,  turning  to  Rowland.  She  began  to  count  on  her 
fingers,  "  We  have  to  go  to  the  Pie  di  Marmo  to  see  about 
those  laces  that  were  sent  to  be  washed.  You  said  also 
that  you  wished  to  say  three  sharp  words  to  the  Buonvicini 
about  your  pink  dress.  You  want  some  moss-rosebuds  for 
to-night,  and  you  won't  get  them  for  nothing  !  You  dine 
at  the  Austrian  Embassy,  and  that  Frenchman  is  to 
powder  your  hair.  You're  to  come  home  in  time  to  receive, 
for  the  signora  gives  a  dance.  And  so  away,  away  till 
morning  ! " 

"  Ah,  yes,  the  moss-roses  !  "  Christina  murmured  appre- 
ciatively. "  I  must  have  a  quantity — at  least  a  hundred. 
Nothing  but  buds,  eh  1  You  must  sew  them  in  a  kind  of 
immense  apron,  down  the  front  of  my  dress.  Packed  tight 
together,  eh  ?  It  will  be  delightfully  barbarous.  And 
then  twenty  more  or  so  for  my  hair.  They  go  very  well 
with  powder ;  don't  you  think  so  1  "  And  she  turned  to 
Rowland.      "  I  am  going  en  Pompadour." 

"  Going  where?  " 

"  To  the  Spanish  Embassy,  or  whatever  it  is." 

"  All  down  the  front,  signorina  ?  Bio  huono  I  You 
must  give  me  time  !  "    Assunta  cried. 

"  Yes,  we  will  go ! "  And  she  left  her  place.  She 
walked  slowly  to  the  door  of  the  church,  looking  at  the 
pavement,  and  Rowland  could  not  guess  whether  she  was 
thinking  of  her  apron  of  moss-rosebuds  or  of  her  oppor- 
tunity for  moral  sublimity.  Before  reaching  the  door  she 
turned  away  and  stood  gazing  at  an  old  picture,  indis- 
tinguishable with  blackness,  over  an  altar.  At  last  they 
passed  out  into  the  court.  Glancing  at  her  in  the  open 
air,  Rowland  was  startled ;  he  thought  he  saw  the  traces 


192  RODEPJCK  HUDSON. 

of  hastily  suppressed  tears.  They  had  lost  time,  she  said, 
and  they  miust  hurry;  she  sent  Assunta  to  look  for  a  coach. 
She  remained  silent  a  while,  scratching  the  ground  with  the 
point  of  her  parasol,  and  then  at  last  looking  up  she 
thanked  Kowland  for  his  confidence  in  her  "  reasonable- 
ness." "  It's  really  very  comfortable  to  be  expected  to  do 
something  good,  after  all  the  liorrid  things  one  has  been 
used  to  doing — instructed,  commanded,  forced  to  do !  I 
will  think  over  what  you  have  said  to  me."  In  that 
deserted  quarter  coaches  are  rare,  and  there  was  some 
delay  in  Assunta's  procuring  one.  Christina  talked  of 
the  church,  of  the  picturesque  old  court,  of  that  strange 
decaying  corner  of  Rome.  Rowland  was  perplexed  ;  he 
was  ill  at  ease.  At  last  the  cab  arrived,  but  she  waited 
a  moment  longer.  "So,  decidedly,"  she  suddenly  asked, 
"  I  can  only  harm  him  ?  " 

"  You  make  me  feel  very  brutal,"  said  Rowland. 

"  And  he  is  such  a  fine  fellow  that  it  would  be  really 
a  great  pity,  eh  1 " 

"  1  shall  praise  him  no  more,"  Rowland  said. 

She  turned  away  quickly,  but  she  lingered  still.  "  Do 
you  remember  promising  me,  soon  after  we  first  met,  that 
at  the  end  of  six  months  you  would  tell  me  definitely  what 
you  thought  of  me  ?  " 

"  It  was  a  foolish  promise." 

"  You  gave  it.  Bear  it  in  mind.  I  will  think  of  what 
you  have  said  to  me.  Farewell."  The  two  women  stepped 
into  the  carriage  and  it  rolled  away.  Rowland  stood  for 
some  minutes  looking  after  it,  and  then  went  his  way  with 
a  sigh.  If  this  expressed  general  mistrust,  he  ought  three 
days  afterwards  to  have  been  reassured.  He  received  by 
the  post  a  note  containing  these  words : — 

"  I  have  done  it.     Begin  and  respect  me  ! 

"C.  L." 

To  be  perfectly  satisfactory,  indeed,  the  note  required 
a  commentary.  Calling  that  evening  upon  Roderick,  he 
found  one  in  the  information  offered  him  at  the  door  by 
the  old  serving-woman — the  startling  information  that 
the  signorino  had  gone  to  Naples. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  193 


XV. 


About  a  month  later  Rowland  addressed  to  his  cousin 
Cecilia  a  letter,  of  which  the  following  is  a  portion  : — 

.  .  .  "So  much  for  myself ;  yet  I  tell  you  but 
a  tithe  of  my  own  story  unless  I  let  you  know  how 
matters  stand  with  poor  Hudson,  for  he  gives  me  more 
to  think  about  just  now  than  anything  else  in  the  world. 
I  need  a  good  deal  of  courage  to  begin  this  chapter.  You 
warned  me,  you  know,  and  I  made  rather  light  of  your 
warning.  I  have  had  all  kinds  of  hopes  and  fears,  but 
hitherto,  in  writing  to  you,  I  have  resolutely  put  the  hopes 
foremost.  Now,  however,  my  pride  has  forsaken  me,  and 
I  should  like  hugely  to  give  expression  to  a  little  com- 
fortable despair.  I  should  like  to  say,  'My  dear  wise 
cousin,  you  were  right  and  I  was  wrong  ;  you  were  a 
shrewd  observer,  and  I  was  a  meddlesome  donkey  !  '  When 
I  think  of  a  certain  talk  we  had  about  the  *  salubrity  of 
genius,'  I  feel  my  ears  tingle.  If  this  is  salubrity,  give 
me  raging  disease  !  I  am  pestered  to  death  ;  I  go  about 
with  a  chronic  heartache  ;  there  are  moments  when  I  could 
shed  salt  tears.  There's  a  pretty  portrait  of  the  most 
placid  of  men  .  I  v/ish  I  could  make  you  understand  ;  or 
rather  I  wish  you  could  make  me  !  I  don't  understand  a 
jot ;  it's  a  hideous,  mocking  mystery  ;  I  give  it  up !  I 
don't  in  the  least  give  it  up,  you  know  ;  I  am  incapable 
of  giving  it  up.  I  sit  holding  my  head  by  the  hour,  rack- 
ing my  brain,  wondering  what  to  invent.  You  told  me 
at  Northampton  that  I  took  the  thing  too  easily  ;  you  would 
tell  me  now  perhaps  that  I  take  it  too  hard.  I  do,  alto- 
gether ;  but  it  can't  be  helped.  Without  flattering  myself 
I  may  say  I  am  sympathetic.  Many  another  man,  before 
this,  would  have  cast  his  perplexities  to  the  winds,  and 
declared  that  Master  Hudson  must  lie  on  his  bed  as  he 
had  made  it.  Some  men  perhaps  would  even  say  that  I 
am  making  a  mighty  ado  about  nothing,  that  I  have  only 
to  give  him  rope  and  he  will  tire  himself  out.  But  he  tugs 
at  his  rope  altogether  too  hard  for  me  to  hold  it  comfort- 
ably !     I  certainly  never  pretended  the  thing  was  anything 


194  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

but  an  experiment ;  I  promised  nothing,  I  answered  for 
nothing  ;  I  only  said  that  the  case  was  hopeful,  and  it 
would  be  a  shame  not  to  give  him  a  chance.  I  have  done 
mv  best,  and  if  the  machine  is  running  down  I  have  a 
right  to  stand  aside  and  let  it  rattle.  Amen,  amen  !  No, 
I  can  write  that,  but  I  can't  feel  it.  I  can't  be  just ;  I 
can  only  be  generous.  I  am  fond  of  the  poor  devil,  and 
I  can't  give  him  up.  As  for  understanding  him,  that's 
another  matter ;  nowadays  I  don't  believe  even  you  would. 
One's  wits  are  sadly  pestered  over  here,  I  assure  you,  and 
I  am  in  the  way  of  seeing  more  than  one  peculiar  specimen 
of    human   nature.     Roderick   and    Miss    Light,    between 

them  ! Haven't    I    already    told    you    about 

Miss  Light  ?  Last  winter  everything  was  perfection. 
Roderick  struck  out  bravely,  did  really  great  things,  and 
proved  himself  as  I  supposed  thoroughly  solid.  He  was 
strong,  he  was  first  rate  ;  I  felt  perfectly  secure,  and  paid 
myself  all  kinds  of  compliments.  We  had  passed  at  a 
bound  into  the  open  sea  and  left  danger  behind.  But  in 
the  summer  I  began  to  be  uneasy,  though  I  succeeded  in 
not  being  alarmed.  When  he  came  back  to  Rome,  however, 
I  saw  that  the  tide  had  turned,  and  that  we  were  close 
upon  the  rocks.  It  is  in  fact  another  case  of  Ulysses  and 
the  Sirens  ;  only  Roderick  refuses  to  be  tied  to  the  mast. 
[He  is  the  most  extraordinary  being,  the  strangest  mixture 
of  qualities.  I  don't  understand  so  much  force  going  with 
so  much  weakness — such  a  brilliant  gift  being  subject  to 
such  lapses.  The  poor  fellow  is  incomplete,  and  it  is  really 
not  his  own  fault  ;  Nature  has  given  him  his  faculty  out 
of  hand  and  bidden  him  be  hanged  with  it  j])  I  never  knew 
a  man  harder  to  advise  or  assist,  if  he  is  not  in  the  mood 
for  listening.  I  suppose  there  is  some  key  or  other  to  his 
character,  but  I  try  in  vain  to  find  it ;  and  yet  I  can't 
believe  that  Providence  is  so  cruel  as  to  have  turned  the 
lock  and  thrown  the  key  away.  He  perplexes  me  to  death, 
and  though  he  tires  out  my  patience  he  still  fascinates  me. 
Sometimes  I  think  he  has  not  a  grain  of  conscience,  and 
sometimes  I  think  .that  in  a  way  he  has  an  excess.  He 
takes  things  at  once  too  easily  and  too  hard  ;  he  is  both 
boo  lax  and  too  tense,  too  reckless  and  too  ambitious,  too 
cold  and  too  passionate.  He  has  developed  faster  even 
than  you  prophesied,  and  for  good  and  evil  alike  he  takes 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  195 

up  a  formidable  space.  There's  too  much  of  him  for  me, 
at  any  rate.  Yes,  he  is  hard  ;  there  is  no  mistake  about 
that.  He's  inflexible,  he's  brittle  ;  and  though  he  has  plenty 
of  spirit,  plenty  of  soul,  he  hasn't  what  I  call  a  heart.  He 
has  something  that  Miss  Garland  took  for  one,  and  I  am 
pretty  sure  she's  a  judge.  But  she  judged  on  scanty 
evidence.  He  has  something  that  Christina  Light,  here, 
makes  believe  at  times  that  she  takes  for  one,  but  she 
is  no  judge  at  all  !  I  think  it  is  established  that  in 
the  lonsr  run  esrotism  makes  a  failure  in  conduct :  is  it 
also  true  that  it  makes  a  failure  in  the  arts  ?  .  .  .  . 
Roderick's  standard  is  immensely  high  ;  I  must  do  him 
that  justice.  He  will  do  nothing  beneath  it,  and  while 
he  is  waiting  for  inspiration,  his  imagination,  his  nerves, 
"his  senses  must  have  something  to  amuse  them.  This  is 
a  highly  philosophic  way  of  saying  that  he  has  taken  to 
riotous  living  and  has  just  been  spending  a  month  at 
Naples — a  city  where  '  pleasure  '  is  actively  cultivated — in 
very  bad  company.  Are  they  all  like  that,  all  the  men 
of  genius  'i  There  are  a  great  many  artists  here  who 
hammer  away  at  their  trade  with  exemplary  industry  ;  in 
fact  I  am  surprised  at  their  success  in  reducing  the  matter 
to  a  virtuous  habit ;  but  I  really  don't  think  that  one  of 
them  has  his  exquisite  quality  of  talent.  It  is  in  the 
matter  of  quantity  that  he  has  broken  down.  Nothing 
comes  out  of  the  bottle ;  he  turns  it  upside  down  ;  it's  no 
use  !  Sometimes  he  declares  it's  empty — that  he  has  done 
all  he  was  made  to  do.  This  I  consider  great  nonsense  ; 
but  I  would  nevertheless  take  him  on  his  own  terms  if  it 
were  only  I  that  was  concerned.  But  I  keep  thinking  of 
those  two  praying,  trusting  neighbours  of  yours,  and  I  feel 
uncommonly  like  a  swindler.  If  his  working  mood  came 
on  but  once  in  five  years  I  would  willingly  wait  for  it 
and  keep  him  on  his  legs  somehow  in  the  intervals  ;  but 
that  would  be  a  sorry  account  to  present  to  them  !  Five 
years  of  this  sort  of  thing  moreover  would  effectually  settle 
the  question.  I  wish  he  were  less  of  a  genius  and  more 
of  a  charlatan  !  He's  too  confoundedly  all  of  one  piece  ;  he 
won't  throw  overboard  a  grain  of  the  cargo  to  save  the 
rest.  Fancy  him  thus  with  all  his  brilliant  personal 
charm,  his  handsome  head,  his  careless  step,  his  look  as 
of   a   nervous    nineteenth-century    Apollo,    and    you   will 

N  2 


106  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

understand  that  there  is  mi^'hty  little  comfort  in  seeing 
him  go  to  the  bad.     He  was  tolerably  foolish  last  summer 
at  Baden-Baden,  but  he  got  on  his  feet  and  for  a  while  he 
was  steady.     Then  he  began  to   waver   again  and   at  last 
toppled  over.     Now,  literally,  he's  lying  prone  !     He  came 
into  my  room  last  night  miserably  tipsy.     I  assure  you  it 
didn't  amuse  me.   .  .   .  About  Miss  Light  it's  a  long  story. 
She  is  one  of  the  great   beauties  of  all  time,  and  worth 
coming  barefoot  to  Rome  like  the  pilgrims  of  old  to  see. 
Her  complexion,  her  glance,  her  step,  her  dusky  tresses,  may 
have  been  seen  before  in  a  goddess,  but  never  in  a  woman. 
And  you  may  take  this  for  truth,  because  I  am  not  in  love 
with   her.      On  the  contrary  !      Her    education    has  been 
simply  infernal.     She  is  corrupt,  perverse,  as   proud  as  a 
potentate,  and  a  coquette  of  the  first  magnitude ;  but  she 
is  generous  and  intelligent,  and  if  you  set  rightly  to  work 
you  may  enlist  her  imagination  in   a  good  cause  as  well  as 
in  a  bad  one.     The  other  day  I  tried  to  bring  it  over  to 
my  side.     I  happened  to  have  some  talk  with  her  to  which 
it  was  possible  to  give  a  serious  turn,  and  I  boldly  broke 
ground  and  begged  her  to  suffer  my  poor  friend  to  go  in 
peace.     After  leading  me  rather  a  dance — in  conversation 
— she  consented,  and  the  next  day,  w^ith  a  single  word,  she 
packed  him  off  to  Naples  to  drown  his  sorrow  in  debauchery. 
I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  she  is  more  dangerous 
in  her  virtuous  moods  than  in  her  vicious  ones,  and  that 
she  probably  has  a  way  of  turning  her  back  which  is  the 
most  provoking  thing  in  the  world.     She  is  an  actress,  she 
couldn't  forego  doing  the  thing  dramatically,  and  it  was  the 
dramatic  touch  that  made  it  fatal.      I  wished  her  of  course 
to  let  him  down  easily  ;  but  she  desired  to  have  the  curtain 
drop  on  an  attitude,  and  her  attitudes  have  the  property 
of  depriving  inflammable  young  artists  of  their  reason.   .   .   . 
Roderick  made  an  admirable  bust  of  her  at  the  beginning 
of  the  winter,  and  a  dozen  women  came  rushing  to  him  to 
bS  done,  mutatis  mutandis,  in  the  same  style.     They  were 
all  great  ladies  and  ready  to  take  him  by  the  hand,  but  he 
told  them  all  their  faces  didn't  interest  him  and  sent  them 
away  vowing  his  destruction." 

At  this  stage  of  his  long  burst  of  confidence  Rowland 
had  pau^ed  and  put  by  his  letter.  He  kept  it  three  days 
and  then  read  it  over.     He  was  disposed  at  first  to  destroy 


RODEKICK  HUDSON.  197 

it,  but  he  decided  finally  to  keep  it,  in  the  hope  that  it 
might  strike  a  spark  of  useful  suggestion  from  the  flint 
of  Cecilia's  good  sense.  We  know  he  had  a  talent  for 
taking  advice.  And  then  it  might  be,  he  reflected,  that 
his  cousin's  answer  would  throw  some  light  on  Mary 
Garland's  present  vision  of  things.  In  his  altered  mood 
he  added  these  few  lines — 

"  I  unburdened  myself  the  other  day  of  this  monstrous 
load  of  perplexity  ;  I  think  it  did  me  good,  and  I  will  let 
it  stand.  I  was  in  a  melancholy  muddle,  and  I  was  trying 
to  wriggle  out  of  it.  You  know  I  like  discussion  in  a 
quiet  way,  and  there  is  no  one  with  whom  I  can  have  it 
as  quietly  as  with  you,  most  sagacious  of  cousins  !  There 
is  an  excellent  old  lady  with  whom  I  often  chat  and  who 
talks  very  much  to  the  point.  But  Madame  Grandoni  has 
disliked  Roderick  from  the  first,  and  if  I  were  to  take 
her  advice  I  would  wash  my  hands  of  him.  You  would 
laugh  at  me  for  my  long  face,  but  you  would  do  that  in 
any  circumstances.  I  am  half  ashamed  of  my  letter,  for 
I  have  a  faith  in  my  friend  that  is  deeper  than  my  doubts. 
He  was  here  last  evening,  talking  about  the  Naples 
Museum,  the  Aristides,  the  bronzes,  the  Pompeian  frescoes, 
with  such  a  beautiful  intelligence  that  doubt  of  the  ulti- 
mate future  seemed  blasphemy.  I  walked  back  to  his 
lodging  with  him,  and  he  was  as  mild  as  midsummer 
moonlight.  He  has  that  ineffable  something  that  charms 
and  convinces  ;  my  last  word  about  him  shall  not  be  a 
harsh  one." 

Shortly  after  sending  his  letter,  going  one  day  into  his 
friend's  studio,  he  found  Roderick  suffering  the  honourable 
torture  of  a  visit  from  Mr.  Leavenworth.  Roderick  sub- 
mitted with  extreme  ill  grace  to  being  bored,  and  he  was 
now  evidently  in  a  state  of  high  exasperation.  (He  had 
lately  begun  a  representation  of  a  lazzarone  lounging  in 
the  sun  ;  an  image  of  serene,  irresponsible,  sensuous  life. 
The  real  lazzarone,  he  had  admi(tted,  was  a  vile  fellow  ; 
but  the  ideal  lazzarone — and  his  own  had  been  subtly 
idealised — was  the  flower  of  a  perfect  civilisation.' 

Mr.  Leavenworth  had  apparently  just  transferred  his 
unhurrying  gaze  to  the  figure. 

''Something  in  the  style  of  the  Dying  Gladiator?"  ho 
sympathetically  observed. 


198  KODEKICK  HUDSON. 

"  Oh  no,"  said  Roderick  seriously,  "  he  is  not  dying,  he 
is  only  drunk  !  " 

"  Ah,  but  intoxication,  you  know,"  Mr.  Leavenworth 
rejoined,  "  is  not  a  proper  subject  for  sculpture.  Sculpture 
should  not  deal  with  transitory  attitudes." 

*'  Lying  dead  drunk  is  not  a  transitory  attitude ! 
Nothing  is  more  permanent,  more  sculpturesque,  more 
monumental !  " 

"  An  entertaining  paradox,"  said  Mr.  Leavenworth,  "  if 
we  had  time  to  exercise  our  wits  upon  it.  I  remember  at 
Florence  an  intoxicated  figure  by  Michael  Angelo  which 
seemed  to  me  a  deplorable  aberration  of  a  great  mind. 
I  myself  touch  licjuor  in  no  shape  whatever.  I  have 
travelled  through  Europe  on  cold  water.  The  most  varied 
and  attractive  lists  of  wines  are  offered  me,  but  I  brush 
them  aside.  No  cork  has  ever  been  drawn  at  my 
command  !  " 

''  The  movement  of  drawing  a  cork  calls  into  play  a 
very  pretty  set  of  muscles,"  said  Roderick.  "  I  think 
I  will  make  a  figure  in  that  position." 

"■  A  Bacchus  realistically  treated !  My  dear  young 
friend,  never  trille  with  your  lofty  mission.  Spotless 
marble  should  represent  virtue,  not  vice !  "  And  Mr. 
Leavenworth  placidly  waved  his  hand,  as  if  to  exercise 
the  spirit  of  levity,  while  his  glance  journeyed  with 
leisurely  benignity  to  another  object — a  marble  replica 
of  the  bust  of  Christina.  "An  ideal  head  I  presume,"  he 
went  on ;  "a  fanciful  representation  of  one  of  the  pagan 
goddesses — a  -Diana,  a  Flora,  a  naiad  or  dryad  1  I  often 
regret  that  our  American  artists  should  not  boldly  cast  off 
that  extinct  nomenclature." 

"  She  is  neither  a  naiad  nor  a  dryad,"  said  Roderick, 
"  and  her  name  is  as  good  as  yours  or  mine." 

"  You  call  her — 1  "  Mr.  Leavenworth  blandly  inquired. 

"  Christina  Light,"  Rowland  interposed  in  charity. 

"  Ah.  our  great  American  beauty  !  Not  a  pagan  goddess 
— an  American,  Christian  lady  !  Yes,  I  have  had  the 
pleasure  of  conversing  with  Miss  Light.  Her  conversa- 
tional powers  are  not  remarkable,  but  her  beauty  is  of 
a  high  order.  I  observed  her  the  other  evening  at  a  large 
party,  where  some  of  the  proudest  members  of  the  European 
aristocracy  were  present — duchesses,  princesses,  countesses, 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  199 

and  others  distinguished  by  similar  titles.  But  for  beauty- 
grace  and  elegance  my  fair  countrywoman  left  them  all 
nowhere.  What  woman  can  compare  with  a  truly  refined 
American  lady  ?  The  duchesses  the  other  night  had  no 
attractions  for  my  eyes ;  they  looked  coarse  and  sensual  ! 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  tyranny  of  class  distinctions 
must  indeed  be  terrible  when  such  countenances  could 
inspire  admiration.  You  see  more  beautiful  girls  in  an 
hour  on  Broadway  than  in  the  whole  tour  of  Europe.  Miss 
Light  now,  on  Broadway,  would  excite  no  particular 
remark." 

"  Oh,  damn  Broadway  !  "  Boderick  murmured. 

Mr.  Leavenworth  stared,  as  if  this  were  unpatriotic ; 
then  he  resumed,  almost  severely — "  1  suppose  you  have 
heard  the  news  about  our  fair  countrywoman." 

"  What  news  1 "  Boderick  had  stood  with  his  back  turned, 
fiercely  poking  at  his  lazzarone ;  but  at  Mr.  Leavenworth's 
last  words  he  faced  quickly  about. 

"  It's  the  news  of  the  hour,  I  believe.  Miss  Light  is 
admired  by  the  highest  people  here.  They  tacitly  recognise 
her  superiority.  She  has  had  offers  of  marriage  from  various 
great  lords.  I  was  extremely  happy  to  learn  this  circum- 
stance, and  to  know  that  they  all  had  been  left  sighing. 
She  has  not  been  dazzled  by  their  titles  and  their  gilded 
coronets.  She  has  judged  them  simply  as  men,  and  found 
them  wanting.  One  of  them  however,  a  young  Neapolitan 
prince  I  believe,  has  after  a  long  probation  succeeded  in 
making  himself  acceptable.  Miss  Light  has  at  last  said 
yes,  and  the  engagement  has  just  been  announced.  I  am 
not  generally  a  reporter  of  the  gossip  of  the  passing  hour, 
but  the  fact  was  alluded  to  an  hour  ago  by  a  lady  with 
whom  I  was  conversing,  and  |here  in  Europe  these  conven-  ^ 
tional  futilities  usurp  the  lion's  f^hare  of  one's  attention."! 
I  therefore  retained  the  circumstance  in  my  mind.  Yes,  ^ 
I  regret  that  Miss  Light  should  marry  one  of  these  used-up 
foreigners.  Americans  should  stand  by  each  other.  If 
she  wanted  a  brilliant  match  we  could  have  organised  it  for 
her.  If  she  wanted  a  fine  fellow — a  fine  sharp  enterprising 
modern  man — I  would  have  undertaken  to  find  him  for  her 
without  going  out  of  my  native  city — Columbus,  Ohio. 
And  if  she  wanted  a  big  fortune,  I  would  have  found  her 
twenty  that   she  would   have  had  hard  work   to  spend; 


200  RODEPJCK  HUDSON. 

money  down — not  tied  up  in  fever-stricken  lands  and  worm- 
eatenVillas  !  What  is  the  name  of  the  young  man  1  Prince 
Castaway,  or  some  such  thing  !  " 

It  was  well  for  Mr.  Leavenworth  that  he  was  fond  of 
listening  to  his  own  correct  periods ;  for  the  current 
of  his  eloijuence  floated  him  past  the  short  sharp  startled 
cry  with  which  Roderick  greeted  his  anecdote.  The  young 
man  stood  looking  at  him  with  parted  lips  and  an  excited 
eye. 

"The  position  of  woman,"  Mr.  Leavenworth  thought- 
fully resumed,  "  is  certainly  a  very  degraded  one  in  these 
countries.  I  doubt  whether  a  European  princess  can  com- 
mand the  respect  which  in  our  country  is  exhibited  towards 
the  obscurest  females.  The  civilisation  of  a  country 
should  be  measured  by  the  deference  shown  to  the  weaker 
sex.     Judged  by  that  standard,  where  are  they  over  here  'i  " 

Though  Mr.  Leavenworth  had  not  observed  Roderick's 
emotion  it  was  not  lost  upon  Rowland,  who  was  making 
sundry  uncomfortable  reflections  upon  it.  He  saw  that 
it  had  instantly  become  one  with  the  acute  irritation 
produced  by  the  poor  gentleman's  oppressive  personality, 
and  that  an  explosion  of  some  sort  was  imminent.  Mr. 
Leavenworth,  with  calm  unconsciousness,  proceeded  to  fire 
the  mine. 

"  And  now  for  our  Culture  !  "  he  said  in  the  same  sonor- 
ous tones,  demanding  with  a  gesture  the  unveiling  of  the 
figure,  which  stood  somewhat  apart,  mufiled  in  a  great  sheet, 

Roderick  stood  looking  at  him  for  a  moment  with  concen- 
trated rancour,  and  then  strode  to  the  statue  and  twitched 
off  the  cover.  Mr.  Leavenworth  settled  himself  into  his 
chair  with  an  air  of  flattered  proprietorship  and  scanned 
the  unfinished  image.  "  I  can  conscientiously  express 
myself  as  gratified  with  the  general  conception,"  he  said. 
"  The  figure  has  considerable  majesty  and  the  countenance 
wears  a  fine  open  expression.  The  forehead,  however, 
strikes  me  as  not  sufficiently  intellectual.  In  the  statue 
of  Culture,  you  know,  that  should  be  the  great  point.  The 
eye  should  instinctively  seek  the  forehead.  Couldn't  you 
elevate  it  a  little  1  " 

Roderick,  for  all  answer,  tossed  the  sheet  back  over  the 
statue.  "  Oblige  me,  sir,"  he  said,  "  oblige  me  !  Never 
mention  that  thing  again." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  201 


"  Never  mention  it  ?     "Why,  my  dear  sir " 

"  Never  mention  it.     It's  an  abomination  !  " 

"  An  abomination  1     My  Culture  !  " 

"  Yours,  indeed  !  "  cried  Roderick.  "  It's  none  of  mine. 
I  disown  it." 

"Disown  it,  if  you  please,"  said  Mr.  Leavenworth, 
sternly,  "  but  finish  it  first  ! " 

"  I  would  rather  smash  it !  "  cried  Roderick. 

"  This  is  folly,  sir.     You  must  keep  your  engagements." 

"  I  made  no  engagement.  A  sculptor  isn't  a  tailor.  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  inspiration  ?  Mine  is  dead  !  And  it's 
no  laughing  matter.     You  yourself  killed  it." 

''  I — I — killed  your  inspiration  1 "  cried  Mr.  Leavenworth, 
with  the  accent  of  righteous  wrath.  "  You  are  a  very 
ungrateful  young  man  !  If  ever  I  have  been  encouraging 
to  any  one,  I  have  been  so  to  you  !  " 

"  I  appreciate  your  good  intentions  and  I  don't  wish  to 
be  uncivil.  But  your  encouragement  is — superfluous.  I 
can't  work  for  you  !• ' ' 

"  I  call  this  ill-humour,  my  good  sir !  "  said  Mr.  Leaven- 
worth, as  if  he  had  found  the  damning  word. 

'*  Oh,  I'm  in  an  infernal  humour  !  "  Roderick  answered. 

"  Pray,  sir,  is  it  my  inopportune  allusion  to  Miss  Light's 
marriage  1 " 

"It's  your  inopportune  everything!  I  don't  say  that 
to  ofi^end  you  ;  I  beg  your  pardon  if  it  does.  I  say  it  by 
way  of  making  our  rupture  complete,  irretrievable  !  " 

Rowland  had  stood  by  in  silence,  but  he  now  interfered. 
"Listen  to  me,"  he  said,  laying  his  hand  on  Roderick's 
arm.  "  You  are  standing  on  the  edge  of  a  gulf.  If  you 
suffer  this  accident  to  put  you  out,  you  take  your  plunge. 
It's  no  matter  that  you  don't  like  your  work  ;  you  will  do 
the  wisest  thing  you  ever  did  if  you  make  the  effort  of 
will  necessary  for  finishing  it.  Destroy  the  statue  then, 
if  you  like,  but  make  the  effort.     I  speak  the  truth  !  " 

Roderick  looked  at  him  with  eyes  that  still  inexorableness 
made  almost  tender.      "  You,  too  1 "  he  simply  said. 

Rowland  felt  that  he  might  as  well  attempt  to  squeeze 
water  from  a  polished  crystal  as  hope  to  move  him.  He 
turned  away  and  walked  into  the  adjoining  room  with 
a  sense  of  sickening  helplessness.  In  a  few  moments  he 
came  back  and  found  that  Mr.  Leavenworth  had  departed 


202  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

— presumably  in  a  manner  sufficiently  majestic.  Roderick 
was  sitting  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  his  head  in 
his  hands. 

Rowland  made  one  more  attempt.  "  You  won't  mind 
me,  eh  ? " 

"  Be  so  good  as  not  to  mind  me  !  " 

"  There's  one  more  point — that  you  shouldn't  go  to  Mrs. 
Light's  for  a  month." 

"  I  shall  go  there  this  evening." 

"  That  too  is  an  utter  folly." 

"  There  are  such  things  as  necessary  follies." 

"  You  are  not  reflecting  ;  you  are  speaking  in  passion." 

**  Why  then  do  you  make  me  speak  1 " 

Rowland  meditated  a  moment.  "  Is  it  also  necessary 
that  you  should  lose  the  beist  friend  you  have  %  " 

Roderick  looked  up.      "  That's  for  you  to  settle  !  " 

His  best  friend  clapped  on  his  hat  and  strode  away  ;  in 
a  moment  the  door  closed  behind  him. 


XYI. 


Rowland  walked  hard  for  a  couple  of  hours.  He  passed 
up  the  Corso,  out  of  the  Porta  del  Popolo  and  into  the 
Yilla  Borghese,  of  which  he  made  a  complete  circuit.  The 
keenness  of  his  irritation  subsided,  but  it  left  him  with  an 
intolerable  weight  on  his  heart.  When  dusk  had  fallen  he 
found  himself  near  the  lodging  of  his  friend  Madame 
Grandoni.  He  frequently  paid  her  a  visit  during  the  hour 
which  preceded  dinner,  and  he  now  ascended  her  unillumined 
staircase  and  rang  at  her  relaxed  bell-rope  with  an  especial 
desire  for  diversion.  He  was  told  that  for  the  moment 
she  was  occupied,  but  that  if  he  would  come  in  and  wait 
she  would  presently  be  with  him.  He  had  not  sat  musing 
in  the  firelight  for  ten  minutes  when  he  heard  the  jingle 
of  the  door-bell  and  then  a  rustling  and  murmuring  in  the 
hall.  The  door  of  the  little  parlour  opened,  but  before 
the  visitor  appeared  he  had  recognised  her  voice.    Christina 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  203 

Light  swept  forward,  preceded  by  her  poodle  and  almost 
filling  the  narrow  room  with  the  train  of  her  dress.  She 
was  coloured  here  and  there  by  the  flickering  firelight. 

"  They  told  me  you  were  here,"  she  said  simply,  as  she 
took  a  seat. 

"  And  yet  you  came  in  1  It  is  very  brave,"  said  Row- 
land. 

"  You  are  the  brave  one  when  one  thinks  of  it !  Where 
is  the  padrona  'i  " 

"  Occupied  for  the  moment.     But  she  is  coming." 

"  How  soon  ?  " 

"  I  have  already  waited  ten  minutes ;  I  expect  her  from 
moment  to  moment." 

"  Meanwhile,  we  are  alone  ? "  And  she  glanced  into  the 
dusky  corners  of  the  room. 

"  Unless  Stenterello  counts,"  said  Rowland. 

"  Oh,  he  knows  my  secrets — unfortunate  brute  !  "  She 
sat  silent  awhile,  looking  into  the  firelight.  Then  at  last, 
glancing  at  Rowland,  "  Come  !  say  something  pleasant  !  " 
she  exclaimed. 

"  I  have  been  very  happy  to  hear  of  your  engage- 
ment." 

"  No,  I  don't  mean  that,  I  have  heard  that  so  often, 
only  since  breakfast,  that  it  has  lost  all  sense.  I  mean 
some  of  those  unexpected  charming  things  that  you  said  to 
me  a  month  ago  at  St.  Cecilia's." 

"  I  offended  you  then,"  said  Rowland.  "  I  was  afraid 
I  had." 

"  Ah,  it  occurred  to  you  1  Why  haven't  I  seen  you 
since  1  " 

"  Really  I  don't  know."  And  he  began  to  hesitate  for 
an  explanation.  "  I  have  called — but  you  have  never  been 
at  home." 

"  You  were  careful  to  choose  the  wrong  times.  You  havo 
a  way  with  a  poor  girl  !  You  sit  down  and  inform  her 
that  she  is  a  person  with  whom  a  respectable  young  man 
can't  associate  without  contamination;  your  friend  is  a 
very  nice  fellow,  you  are  very  careful  of  his  morals,  you 
wish  him  to  know  none  but  nice  people,  and  you  beg  me 
therefore  to  desist.  You  request  me  to  take  these  sugges- 
tions' to  heart  and  to  act  upon  them  as  promptly  as  pos- 
sible.    They  are  not  particularly  flattering  to  my  vanity. 


204  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Vanity  however  is  a  sin,  and  I  listen  submissively,  with 
an  immense  desire  to  be  just.  If  I  have  many  faults 
I  know  it  in  a  general  way  and  I  try  on  the  whole  to  do 
my  best.  '  Voyons,'  I  say  to  myself,  '  it  isn't  particularly 
charming  to  hear  oneself  made  out  such  a  low  person,  but 
it  is  worth  thinking  over ;  there  is  probably  a  good  deal 
of  truth  in  it,  and  at  any  rate  we  must  be  as  good  a  girl 
as  we  can.'  That's  the  great  point!  And  then  here's  a 
magnificent  chance  for  humility.  If  there's  doubt  in  the 
matter,  let  the  doubt  count  against  oneself.  That  is  what 
Saint  Catherine  did,  and  Saint  Theresa,  and  all  the  others, 
and  they  are  said  to  have  had  in  consequence  the  most 
ineffable  joys.  Let  us  go  in  for  a  little  ineffable  joy  !  I 
tried  it ;  I  swallowed  my  rising  sobs,  I  made  you  my 
curtsey,  I  determined  I  would  not  be  spiteful,  nor  passionate, 
nor  vengeful,  nor  anything  that  is  supposed  to  be  particu- 
larly feminine.  I  was  a  better  girl  than  you  made  out — 
better  at  least  than  you  thought ;  but  I  would  let  the 
difference  go,  and  do  magnificently  right  lest  I  should  not 
do  right  enough.  I  thought  of  it  a  great  deal  for  six  hours, 
when  I  know  I  didn't  seem  to  be  thinking,  and  then  at  last 
I  did  it !     Santo  Dio  !  " 

"  My  dear  Miss  Light,  my  dear  Miss  Light  1  "  said 
Rowland  pleadingly. 

"  Since  then,"  the  young  girl  went  on,  "  I  have  been  wait- 
ing for  the  ineffable  joys.     They  haven't  yet  turned  up  !  '' 

"  Pray  listen  to  me  !  "  Rowland  urged. 

"  Nothing,  nothing,  nothing  has  come  of  it.  I  have 
passed  the  dreariest  month  of  my  life  !  " 

"  You  are  a  very  terrible  young  woman  !  "  cried  Rowland. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ^  " 

"  A  good  many  things.  We  will  talk  them  over.  But, 
first,  forgive  me  if  I  have  offended  you !  " 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment,  hesitating,  and  then 
thrust  her  hands  into  her  muff.  "  That  means  '  nothing. 
Forgiveness  is  between  equals,  and  you  don't  regard  me 
as  your  equal." 

''  Really  I  don't  understand  !  " 

Christina  rose  and  moved  for  a  moment  about  the  room. 
Then  turning  suddenly,  "  You  don't  believe  in  me  !  "  she 
cried,  "  not  a  grain  !  I  don't  know"  what  I  would  not  give 
to  force  you  to  believe  in  me  !  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  206 

Rowland  sprang  up,  protesting,  but  before  he  had  time 
to  go  far,  one  of  the  scanty  portieres  was  raised,  and 
Madame  Grandoni  came  in,  pulling  her  wig  straight. 
"  But  you  shall  believe  in  me  yet,"  murmured  Christina  as 
she  passed  towards  her  hostess. 

Madame  Grandoni  turned  tenderly  to  Christina.  "  I 
must  give  you  a  very  solemn  kiss,  my  dear  ;  you  are  the 
heroine  of  the  hour.     You  have  really  accepted  him,  eh  ?  " 

"  So  they  say  !  " 

"  But  you  ought  to  know  best." 

"  I  don't  know — I  don't  care  !  "  She  stood  with  her 
hand  in  Madame  Grandoni' s,  but  looking  askance  at 
Kowland. 

"  That's  a  pretty  state  of  mind,"  said  the  old  lady, 
"  for  a  young  person  who  is  going  to  become  a  princess." 

Christina  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  Every  one  expects 
me  to  go  into  ecstasies  over  that !  Could  anything  be 
more  vulgar  ?  They  may  chuckle  by  themselves  !  Will  you 
let  me  stay  to  dinner  ]  " 

"  If  you  can  dine  on  a  risotto.  But  I  imagine  you  are 
expected  at  home." 

"  You  are  right.  Prince  Casamassima  dines  there 
enfamille.     But  I  am  not  in  his  family  yet !  " 

"  Do  you  know  you  are  very  wicked  ?  I  have  half  a 
mind  not  to  keep  you." 

Christina  dropped  her  eyes  reflectively.  "  I  beg  you 
will  let  me  stay,"  she  said.  "  If  you  wish  to  cure  me  of 
my  wickedness  you  must  be  very  patient  and  kind  with 
me.  It  will  be  worth  the  trouble.  You  must  show  con- 
fidence in  me."  And  she  gave  another  glance  at  Bowland. 
Then  suddenly,  in  a  different  tone,  "I  don't  know  what 
I  am  saying  i "  she  cried.  "  I  am  weary,  I  am  more  lonely 
than  ever,  I  wish  I  were  dead  !  "  The  tears  rose  to  her 
eyes,  she  struggled  with  them  an  instant  and  buried  her 
face  in  her  mulf  ;  but  at  last  she  burst  into  uncontrollable 
sobs  and  flung  her  arms  upon  Madame  Grandoni's  neck. 
This  shrewd  woman  gave  Rowland  a  significant  nod  and  a 
little  shrug,  over  the  young  girl's  beautiful  bowed  head,  and 
then  led  Christina  tenderly  away  into  the  adjoining  room. 
Rowland,  left  alone,  stood  there  for  an  instant,  intolerably 
puzzled,  face  to  face  with  Miss  Light's  poodle,  who  had  set 
up  a   sharp   unearthly  cry  of  sympathy  with  his  mistress. 


20n  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Rowland  vented  liis  confusion  in  dealing  a  rap  with  his 
stick  at  the  animal's  unmelodious  muzzle,  and  then  rapidly 
left  the  house.  He  saw  Mrs.  Light's  carriage  waiting  at 
the  door,  and  heard  afterwards  that  Christina  went  home 
to  dinner. 

A  couple  of  days  later  he  went  for  a  fortnight  to 
Florence.  He  had  twenty  minds  to  leave  Italy  altogether ; 
and  at  Florence  he  could  at  least  more  freely  decide  upon 
his  future  movements.  He  felt  deeply,  incurably  disgusted. 
Reflective  benevolence  stood  prudently  aside,  and  for  the 
time  touched  the  source  of  his  irritation  with  no  softening 
side-lights. 

It  was  the  middle  of  March,  and  by  the  middle  of 
March  in  Florence  the  spring  is  already  warm  and  deep. 
He  had  an  infinite  relish  for  the  place  and  the  season,  but 
as  he  strolled  by  the  Aruo  and  paused  here  and  there  in 
the  great  galleries  they  failed  to  soothe  his  irritation.  He 
was  sore  at  heart,  and  as  the  days  went  by  the  soreness 
deepened  rather  than  healed.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  a 
complaint  against  fortune  ;  good-natured  as  he  was,  his 
good-nature  this  time  quite  declined  to  let  it  pass.  He 
had  tried  to  be  wise,  he  had  tried  to  be  kind,  he  had  en- 
gaged in  an  estimable  enterprise;  but  his  wisdom,  his 
kindness,  his  energy,  had  been  thrown  back  in  his  face. 
He  was  disappointed,  and  his  disappointment  had  an  angry 
spark  in  it.  The  sense  of  wasted  time,  of  wasted  hope  and 
faith,  kept  him  constant  company.  There  were  times 
when  the  beautiful  things  about  him  only  exasperated  his 
discontent.  He  went  to  the  Pitti  Palace,  and  Raphael's 
Madonna  of  the  Chair  seemed  in  its  soft  serenity  to  mock 
him  with  the  suggestion  of  unattainable  repose.  He 
lingered  on  the  bridges  at  sunset  and  knew  that  the  light 
was  enchanting  and  the  mountains  were  divine,  but  there 
seemed  to  be  something  horribly  invidious  and  unwelcome 
in  the  fact.  He  felt,  in  a  word,  like  a  man  who  has  been 
cruelly  defrauded  and  who  wishes  to  have  his  revenge. 
Life  owed  him,  he  thought,  a  compensation,  and  he  should 
be  restless  and  resentful  until  he  found  it.  He  knew — or 
he  seemed  to  know^ — where  he  should  lind  it ;  but  he  hardly 
told  himself,  and  thought  of  the  thing  under  mental  pro- 
test, as  a  man  in  want  of  money  may  think  of  certain  funds 
that  he  holds  in  trust.     In  his  melancholy  meditations  the 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  207 

idea  of  something  better  than  all  this,  something  that 
might  softly,  richly  interpose,  something  that  might  re- 
concile him  to  the  future,  something  that  might  make 
one's  tenure  of  life  strong  and  zealous  instead  of  mechani- 
cal and  uncertain — the  idea  of  concrete  compensation  in 
a  word — shaped  itself  sooner  or  later  into  the  image  of 
Mary  Garland. 

rVery  odd,  you  may  say,  that  at  this  time  of  day  Rowland 
should  still  be  brooding  over  a  girl  of  no  brilliancy,  of  whom 
he  had  had  but  the  lightest  of  glimpses  two  years  before  ; 
very  odd  that  so  deep  an  impression  should  have  been  made 
by  so  lightly  pressed  an  instrument.  We  must  admit  the 
oddity,  and  remark  simply  in  explanation  that  his  senti- 
ment apparently  belonged  to  that  species  of  emotion  of 
which  by  the  testimony  of  the  poets  the  very  name  and 
essence  are  oddity.  One  night  he  slept  but  half  an  hour ; 
he  found  his  thoughts  taking  a  turn  which  excited  him 
portentously.  He  walked  up  and  down  his  room  half  the 
night.  It  looked  out  on  the  Arno ;  the  noise  of  the  river 
came  in  at  the  open  window;  he  felt  like  dressing  and 
going  down  into  the  streets.  Towards  morning  he  flung 
himself  into  a  chair ;  though  he  was  wide  awake  he  was 
less  excited.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  saw  his  idea  from 
the  outside,  that  he  judged  it  and  condemned  it ;  yet  it 
stood  there  before  him,  very  distinct,  and  in  a  certain  way 
imperious.  During  the  day  he  tried  to  banish  it  and  for- 
get it ;  but  it  fascinated,  haunted,  at  moments  frightened 
him.  He  tried  to  amuse  himself,  paid  visits,  resorted  to 
several  violent  devices  for  diverting  his  thoughts.  If  on 
the  morrow  he  had  committed  a  crime,  the  persons  whom 
he  had  seen  that  day  would  have  testified  that  he  had 
talked  strangely  and  had  not  seemed  like  himself.  He 
felt  certainly  very  unlike  himself;  long  afterwards,  in 
retrospect,  he  used  to  reflect  that  during  those  days  he 
had  for  a  while  been  literally  beside  himself.  His  idea 
persisted ;  it  clung  to  him  like  a  sturdy  beggar.  The 
sense  of  the  matter,  roughly  expressed,  was  this.  ^If 
Roderick  were  really  going,  as  he  himself  had  phrased 
it,  to  "  fizzle  out,"  one  might  help  him  on  the  way — one 
might  smooth  the  descensus  Averni.  For  forty-eight  hours 
there  swam  before  Rowland's  eyes  a  vision  of  Roderick, 
graceful  and  beautiful  as  he  passed,  plunging  like  a  diver 


208  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

into  a  misty  gulf.  The  gulf  was  destruction,  annihilation, 
death ;  but  if  death  wore  decreed,  why  should  not  the 
agony  be  brief?  Beyond  this  vision  there  faintly  glimmered 
another,  as  in  the  children's  game  of  the  magic  lantern  a 
picture  is  superposed  on  the  white  wall  before  the  last  one 
has  tjuite  faded.  It  represented  Mary  Garland  standing 
there  with  eyes  in  which  the  horror  seemed  slowly,  slowly 
to  expire,  and  hanging  motionless  hands  which  at  last 
made  no  resistance  when  his  own  offered  to  take  them. 
When  of  old  a  man  was  burnt  at  the  stake  it  was  cruel  to 
have  to  be  present ;  but  if  one  were  present  it  was  a  charity 
to  lend  a  hand  to  pile  up  the  fuel  and  make  the  flames  do 
their  work  tjuickly  and  the  smoke  muffle  up  the  victim. 
With  all  deference  to  your  charity,  this  was  perhaps  an 
obligation  you  would  especially  feel  if  you  had  a  rever- 
sionary interest  in  something  the  victim  was  to  leave 
behind  him. 

'  One  morning  in  the  midst  of  all  this  Rowland  walked 
heedlessly  out  of  one  of  the  city  gates  and  found  himself 
on  the  road  to  FJBsole.  It  was  a  completely  lovely  day  ; 
the  March  sun  felt  like  May,  as  the  English  poet  of  Florence 
says  ;  the  thick-blossomed  shrubs  and  vines  that  hung  over 
the  walls  of  villa  and  podere  flung  their  odorous  promise 
into  the  warm  still  air.  Rowland  followed  the  winding 
climbing  lanes ;  lingered  as  he  got  higher  beneath  the 
rusty  cypresses,  beside  the  low  parapets,  where  you  look 
down  on  the  charming  city  and  sweep  the  vale  of  the 
Arno ;  reached  the  little  square  before  the  cathedral, 
and  rested  awhile  in  the  massive,  dusky  church  ;  then 
climbed  higher,  to  the  Franciscan  convent  which  is  poised 
on  the  very  apex  of  the  great  hill.  He  rang  at  the  little 
gateway  ;  a  shabby,  senile,  red-faced  brother  admitted  him 
with  almost  maudlin  friendliness.  There  was  a  dreary  chill 
in  the  chapel  and  the  corridors,  and  he  passed  rapidly 
through  them  into  the  delightfully  steep  and  tangled  old 
garden  which  runs  wild  over  the  forehead  of  the  mountain. 
He  had  been  in  it  before,  and  he  was  very  fond  of  it.  The 
garden  hangs  in  the  air,  and  you  ramble  from  terrace  to 
terrace  and  wonder  how  it  keeps  from  slipping  down  in  full 
consummation  of  its  dishonour  and  decay  into  the  nakedly 
romantic  gorge  beneath.  It  was  just  noon  when  Rowland 
went  in,  and  after  roaming  about  awhile  he  flung  himself 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  Aoo) 

in  the  sun  on  a  mossy  stone  bench  and  pulled  his  hat  over 
his  eyes.  The  short  shadows  of  the  brown-coated  cypresses 
above  him  had  grown  very  long,  and  yet  he  had  not  passed 
back  through  the  convent.  One  of  the  monks,  in  his  faded 
snuff-coloured  robe,  came  wandering  out  into  the  garden, 
reading  his  greasy  little  breviary.  Suddenly  he  came 
towards  the  bench  on  which  Rowland  had  stretched 
himself,  and  paused  a  moment  attentively.  Rowland  was 
lingering  there  still ;  he  was  sitting  with  his  head  in  his 
hands  and  his  elbows  on  his  knees.  He  seemed  not  to  have 
heard  the  sandaled  tread  of  the  good  brother,  but  as  the 
monk  remained  watching  him  he  at  last  looked  up.  It  was 
not  the  ignoble  old  man  who  had  admitted  him,  but  a  pale 
gaunt  personage,  of  a  graver  and  more  ascetic,  and  yet  of  a 
benignant  aspect.  Rowland's  face  bore  the  traces  of  extreme 
trouble.  The  frate  kept  his  finger  in  his  little  book  and 
folded  his  arms  picturesquely  across  his  breast.  It  can 
hardly  be  determined  whether  his  attitude,  as  he  bent  his 
sympathetic  Italian  eye  upon  Rowland,  was  a  happy  in- 
cident or  the  result  of  an  exquisite  spiritual  discernment. 
To  Rowland,  at  any  rate,  under  the  emotion  of  that 
moment,  it  seemed  blessedly  opportune.  He  rose  and 
approached  the  monk,  laying  his  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  My  brother,"  he  said,  "  did  you  ever  see  the  Devil  %  " 

The  fratQ  gazed  gravely  and  crossed  himself.  "  Heaven 
forbid  !  " 

"  He  was  here,"  Rowland  went  on,  "here  in  this  lovely 
garden,  as  he  was  once  in  Paradise,  half  an  hour  ago.  But 
have  no  fear  ;  I  drove  him  out.''  And  Rowland  stooped  and 
picked  up  his  hat,  which  had  rolled  away  into  a  bed  of 
cyclamen  in  vague  symbolism  of  an  actual  physical  tussle. 

"  You  have  been  tempted,  my  brother  %  "  asked  the  friar 
tenderly, 

"Hideously!'^ 

'^  And  you  have  resisted — and  conquered  I  " 

"  I  believe  I  have  conquered." 

"  The  blessed  Saint  Francis  be  praised  !  It  is  well  done. 
If  you  like  we  will  offer  a  mass  for  you." 

"  I  am  not  a  Catholic,"  said  Rowland. 

The  frate  smiled  with  dignity.  "  That  is  a  reason  the 
more." 

"  Put  it's  for  you  then  to  choose.    Shake  hands  with  me," 

0 


210  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

Rowland  added  ;  "  that  will  do  as  well ;  and  suffer  me  as 
I  go  out  to  stop  a  moment  in  your  chapel." 

They  shook  hands  and  separated.  The  fraie  crossed 
himself,  opened  his  book,  and  wandered  away  in  relief 
against  the  western  sky.  llowland  passed  back  into  the 
convent  and  paused  long  enough  in  the  chapel  to  look  for 
the  alms-box.  He  had  had  what  is  vulgarly  called  a  great 
scare ;  ho  believed  very  poignantly  for  the  time  in  the 
Devil,  and  he  felt  an  irresistible  need  to  subscribe  to  any 
institution  which  engaged  to  keep  him  at  a  distance. 
^  The  next  day  he  returned  to  Rome,  and  the  day  after 
that  he  went  in  search  of  Roderick.  He  found  him  on  the 
Pincian,  with  his  back  turned  to  the  crowd,  looking  at  the 
sunset.  "  I  went  to  Florence,"  Rowland  said,  "  and  I 
thought  of  going  farther  ;  but  I  came  back  on  purpose  to 
give  you  another  piece  of  advice.  Decidedly,  you  won't 
leave  Rome?  " 

"  Never  !  "  said  Roderick. 

"The  only  chance  that  I  see  then  of  a  revival  of  your 
sense  of  responsibility  to — to  those  various  sacred  things 
you  have  forgotten — is  in  sending  for  your  mother  to  join 
you  here." 

Roderick  stared.     "  For  my  mother  ?  " 

"  For  your  mother — and  for  Miss  Garland." 

Roderick  still  stared  ;  and  then,  slowly  and  faintly,  his 
face  flushed.  "  For  Mary  Garland — for  my  mother  %  "  he 
repeated.     "  Send  for  them  T ' 

'•  Tell  me  this  ;  I  have  often  wondered,  but  till  now 
I  have  forborne  to  ask.  You  are  still  engaged  to  your 
cousin  %  " 

Roderick  frowned  darkly,  but  assented. 

"  Wouldn't  it  give  you  pleasure  then  to  see  her  %  " 

Roderick  turned  away  and  for  some  moments  answered 
nothing.  "  Pleasure  !  "  ho  said  at  last  huskily.  "  Pain 
will  do  as  well  I  " 

"  I  regard  you  as  a  sick  man,"  Rowland  continued. 
"  In  such  a  case  Miss  Garland  would  say  that  her  place  is 
at  your  side." 

Roderick  looked  at  liim  some  time  askance,  mistrust- 
fully.    "  Is  this  a  deep-laid  snare  'i  "  he  asked  slowly. 

Rowland  had  come  back  with  all  his  patience  rekindled, 
but  these  words  gave  it  an  almost  fatal  chill.     "  Heaven 

-  \ 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  211 

forgive  you!"  he  cried  bitterly.  "My  idea  has  been 
simply  this — try  in  decency  to  understand  it.  I  have 
tried  to  befriend  you,  to  help  you,  to  inspire  you  with 
confidence,  and  I  have  failed.  I  took  you  from  the  hands 
of  your  mother  and  that  girl,  and  it  seems  to  me  my  duty 
to  restore  you  to  their  hands.  That's  all  I  have  to 
say." 

He  was  going,  but  Roderick  forcibly  detained  him.  It 
would  have  been  but  a  rough  way  of  expressing  it  to  say 
that  one  could  never  know  how  Roderick  would  take  a 
thing.  It  had  happened  more  than  once  that  when  hit 
hard  deservedly  he  had  received  the  blow  with  touching 
gentleness.  On  the  other  hand  he  had  often  resented  the 
softest  taps.  The  secondary  effect  of  Rowland's  present 
admonition  seemed  reassuring.  "  I  beg  you  to  wait,"  he 
said,  "  to  forgive  that  shabby  speech  and  to  let  me  reflect." 
And  he  walked  up  and  down  awhile  reflecting.  At  last  he 
stopped,  with  a  look  in  his  face  that  Rowland  had  not  seen 
all  the  winter.     It  was  strikingly  beautiful. 

"  How  strange  it  is,"  he  said,  "  that  the  simplest  devices 
are  the  last  that  occur  to  one  !  "  And  he  broke  into  a  light 
laugh.  "  To  see  Mary  Garland  is  just  what  I  want.  And 
my  mother — my  mother  can't  hurt  me  now  !  " 

"  You  will  write  then  ?  " 

"  I  will  telegraph.  They  must  come  at  whatever  cost. 
Striker  can  arrange  it  all  for  them." 

In  a  couple  of  days  he  told  Rowland  that  he  had 
received  a  telegraphic  answer  to  his  message,  informing 
him  that  the  two  ladies  were  to  sail  immediately  for 
Leghorn  in  one  of  the  small  steamers  which  ply  between 
that  port  and  New  York.  They  would  arrive  therefore  in 
less  than  a  month.  Rowland  passed  this  month  of  ex- 
pectation in  no  very  serene  frame  of  mind.  His  suggestion 
had  had  its  source  in  the  deepest  places  of  his  agitated 
conscience;  but  there  was  something  intolerable  in  the 
thought  of  the  suffering  to  which  the  event  would  pro- 
bably subject  those  undefended  women.  They  had  scraped 
together  their  scanty  funds,  and  embarked  at  twenty-four 
hours'  notice  upon  the  dreadful  sea  to  journey  tremulously 
to  shores  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  deeper  alarms.  He 
could  only  promise  himself  to  be  their  devoted  friend  and 
servant.     Preoccupied  as  he  was  he  was  able  to  observe 

o  2 


212  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

that  expectation,  with  Jloderic-k,  took  a  form  which  seemed 
singular  even  amcnig  his  characteristic  singularities.  If 
redemption — Kodorick  seemed  to  reason — was  to  arrive 
with  his  mother  and  his  athaneed  bride,  these  last  moments 
of  error  should  be  doubly  erratic.  He  did  nothing ;  but  in- 
action, with  him,  took  on  an  unwonted  air  of  gentle  gaiety, 
He  laughed  and  whistled  and  went  often  to  Mrs.  Light's  ; 
though  liowland  failed  to  guess  in  what  fashion  present 
circumstances  had  modified  his  relations  with  Christina. 
The  month  ebbed  away  and  Kowland  daily  expected  to 
hear  from  Roderick  that  he  had  gone  to  Leghorn  to  meet 
the  ship.  He  heard  nothing,  and  late  one  evening,  not 
having  seen  his  friend  in  three  or  four  days,  he  stopped  at 
Koderick's  lodging  to  assure  himself  that  he  had  gone  at 
last.  A  cab  was  standing  in  the  street,  but  as  it  was  a 
couple  of  doors  off  he  hardly  heeded  it.  The  hall  at  the 
foot  of  the  staircase  was  dark,  like  most  Roman  halls,  and 
he  paused  in  the  open  doorway  on  hearing  the  advancing 
footstep  of  a  person  with  whom  he.  wished  to  avoid  coming 
into  collision.  While  he  did  so  he  heard  another  footstep 
behind  him,  and  turning  round  found  that  Roderick  him- 
self had  just  overtaken  him.  At  the  same  moment  a 
woman's  figure  advanced  from  w^ithin,  into  the  light  of 
the  street-lamp,  and  a  face,  half  startled,  glanced  at  him 
out  of  the  darkness.  He  gave  a  cry — it  was  the  face  of 
Mary  Garland.  Her  glance  flew  past  him  to  Roderick, 
and  in  a  second  a  startled  exclamation  broke  from  her 
own  lips.  It  made  Rowland  turn  again.  Roderick  stood 
there,  pale,  apparently  trying  to  speak,  but  saying  nothing. 
His  lips  were  parted,  and  he  was  wavering  slightly  with 
a  strange  movement — the  movement  of  a  man  who  has 
drunk  too  much.  Then  Rowland's  eyes  met  Miss  Gar- 
land's again,  and  her  own,  which  had  rested  a  moment 
on  Roderick's,  were  formidable. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  213 


XVII. 

How  it  occurred  that  Roderick  had  failed  to  be  at 
Leghorn  at  the  moment  of  his  mother's  arrival  was  never 
clearly  ascertained  ;  for  he  undertook  to  give  no  elaborate 
explanation  of  his  fault.  He  never  indulged  in  professions 
(touching  personal  conduct)  as  to  the  future,  or  in  remorse 
as  to  the  past,  and  as  he  would  have  asked  no  praise  if  he 
had  travelled  night  and  day  to  embrace  Mrs.  Hudson  as 
she  set  foot  on  shore,  he  made  (in  Rowland's  presence  at 
least)  no  apology  for  having  left  her  to  come  in  search  of 
him.  It  was  to  be  said  that  thanks  to  an  unprecedentedly 
fine  season  the  voyage  of  the  two  ladies  had  been  surpris- 
ingly rapid,  and  that  according  to  common  probabilities 
if  Roderick  had  left  Rome  on  the  morrow  (as  he  declared 
that  he  had  intended)  he  would  still  have  had  a  day  or 
two  of  waiting  at  Leghorn.  Rowland's  silent  inference 
was  that  Christina  Light  had  beguiled  him  into  letting  the 
time  slip,  and  it  was  accompanied  with  a  silent  inquiry 
--  whether  she  had  done  so  unconsciously  or  maliciously.  He 
had  told  her  presumably  that  his  mother  and  his  cousin 
were  about  to  arrive  ;  and  it  was  pertinent  to  remember 
hereupon  that  she  was  a  young  lady  of  mysterious  impulses. 
Rowland  heard  in  due  time  the  story  of  the  adventures  of 
the  two  ladies  from  Northampton.  Mary  Garland's  wish,  at 
Leghorn,  on  finding  they  were  left  to  their  o^vn  devices,  had 
been  to  telegraph  to  Roderick  and  await  an  answer ;  for  she 
knew  that  their  arrival  was  a  trifle  premature.  But  Mrs. 
Hudson's  maternal  heart  had  taken  the  alarm.  Roderick's 
sending  for  them  was,  to  her  imagination,  a  confession  of 
illness,  and  his  not  being  at  Leghorn,  a  proof  of  it ;  an 
hour's  delay  was  therefore  cruel  both  to  herself  and  to 
him.  She  insisted  on  immediate  departure ;  and,  unskilled 
as  they  were  in  the  mysteries  of  foreign  (or  even  of 
domestic)  travel,  they  had  hurried  in  trembling  eagerness 
to  Rome.  They  had  arrived  late  in  the  evening,  and 
knowing  nothing  of  inns  had  got  into  a  cab  and  proceeded 
to  Roderick's  lodgingo  At  the  door  poor  Mrs.  Hudson's 
trepidation  had  overcome  her  and  she  had  sat  quaking  and 


214  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

crying  in  the  vehicle.  Mary  had  bravely  gone  in,  groped 
her  way  up  the  dusky  staircase,  reached  Koderick's  door 
and,  with  the  assistance  of  such  acquaintance  with  the 
Italian  tongue  as  she  had  culled  from  a  phrase-book  during 
the  calm  hours  of  the  voyage,  had  learned  from  the  old 
woman  who  had  her  cousin's  household  economy  in  charge, 
that  he  was  in  the  best  of  health  and  spirits  and  had 
gone  forth  a  few  hours  before  with  his  hat  on  his  ear  per 
divertirsi. 

These  things  Rowland  learned  during  a  visit  he  paid  the 
two  ladies  the  evening  after  their  arrival.  Mrs.  Hudson 
spoke  of  them  at  great  length,  and  with  an  air  of  clinging 
confidence  in  Rowland  which  told  him  that  he  was  now 
enshrined  in  her  innermost  favour.  But  her  fright  was 
over,  though  she  was  still  catching  her  breath  a  little,  like 
a  person  dragged  ashore  out  of  waters  uncomfortably  deep. 
She  was  excessively  bewildered  and  confused,  and  seemed 
more  than  ever  to  demand  a  tender  handling  from  her 
friends.  Before  her  companion  Rowland  was  distinctly 
-eoescious  that  he  trembled.  He  wondered  extremely  what 
was  going  on  in  this  young  lady's  mind ;  what  was  her 
silent  commentary  on  the  incidents  of  the  night  before. 
He  wondered  all  the  more  because  he  immediately  per- 
ceived that  she  was  now  an  altered  woman  and  that  the 
ditt'erence  was  not  an  injury.  She  was  older,  easier,  more 
free,  she  had  more  of  the  manner  of  society.  She  had 
more  beauty  as  well,  inasmuch  as  her  beauty  before  had 
been  the  quality  of  her  expression,  and  the  sources  from 
which  this  beauty  was  fed  had  in  these  two  years  evidently 
not  wasted  themselves.  Rowland  felt  almost  instantly — 
he  could  hardly  have  said  why ;  it  was  in  her  voice,  in  her 
tone,  in  the  air — that  a  total  change  had  passed  over  her 
attitude  towards  himself.  She  triiiited  him  now  absolutely  ; 
whether  or  no  she  liked  him,  she  believed  in  his  solidity. 
He  felt  that  during  the  coming  weeks  he  should  need  to  be 
solid.  Mrs.  Hudson  was  at  one  of  the  smaller  hotels,  and 
her  sitting-room  was  frugally  lighted  by  a  couple  of  candles. 
Rowland  made  the  most  of  this  dim  illumination  to  try  to 
detect  the  afterglow  of  that  frightened  flash  from  Mary's 
eyes  the  night  before.  It  had  been  but  a  flash,  for  what 
provoked  it  had  instantly  vanished.  Rowland,  on  this 
occasion,    seeing   Roderick   instantly   perceive   what    had 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  215 

happened,  had  given  him  a  silent  blessing.  If  Roderick 
had  been  drinking,  its  gravity  sobered  him  on  the  spot ;  in 
a  single  moment  he  collected  his  wits.  The  next  moment, 
with  a  ringing  jovial  cry,  he  was  folding  the  young  girl  in 
his  arms,  and  the  next  he  was  beside  his  mother's  carriage, 
half  smothered  in  her  sobs  and  caresses.  Rowland  had 
recommended  an  hotel  close  at  hand  and  had  then  discreetly 
retired.  Koderick  was  at  this  time  doing  his  part  superbly, 
and  Mary  Garland's  brow  was  serene.  It  was  serene  now, 
twenty-four  hours  later;  but  nevertheless  her  alarm  had 
lasted  an  appreciable  moment.  What  had  become  of  it  1 
It  had  dropped  down  deep  into  her  memory,  and  it  was 
lying  there  for  the  present  in  the  shade.  But  from  one 
day  to  another,  Rowland  said  to  himself,  it  would  hold  up 
its  head — it  would  begin  to  watch  and  listen — it  would 
stand  there  confronting  him.  Meanwhile  he  made  the 
most  of  the  hours — he  passed  them  in  the  consciousness  of 
being  near  her.  The  two  ladies  had  spent  the  day  within 
doors,  resting  from  the  fatigues  of  travel.  The  younger 
traveller,  Rowland  suspected,  was  not  so  fatigued  as  she 
suffered  it  to  be  assumed.  She  had  remained  with  Mrs. 
Hudson  to  attend  to  her  personal  wants,  which  the  latter 
seemed  to  think  now  that  she  was  in  a  foreign  land  with  a 
southern  climate  and  a  Catholic  religion  would  forthwith 
become  very  complex  and  formidable,  though  as  yet  they 
had  simply  resolved  themselves  into  a  desire  for  a  great 
deal  of  tea,  and  for  a  certain  extremely  familiar  old  black 
and  white  shawl  across  her  feet  as  she  lay  on  the  sofa. 
jBut  the  sense  of  novelty  was  evidently  strong  upon  Mary, 
and  the  light  of  expectation  was  in  her  eye.  She  was  rest- 
less and  excited  ;  she  moved  about  the  room  and  went 
often  to  the  window;  she  was  observing  keenly;  she 
watched  the  Italian  servants  as  they  came  and  went ;  she 
had  already  had  a  long  colloquy  with  the  French  chamber- 
maid, who  had  expounded  her  views  on  the  Roman  question  ; 
she  noted  the  small  differences  in  the  furniture,  in  the 
cookery,  in  the  sounds  that  came  in  from  the  street.  Row- 
land was  sure  that  she  observed  to  good  purpose,  that  she 
only  needed  opportunity,  and  that  she  would  gather  impres- 
sions as  thickly  clustered  as  the  purple  bunches  of  a  vintage. 
He  wished  immensely  he  might  have  a  hand  in  it ;  he 
wished  he  might  show  her  Rome.     That  of  course  would 


216  KODEIiICK  HUDSON. 

be  Roderick's  oflSce.  But  he  promised  himself  at  least  to 
take  advantage  of  off-hours. 

"It  behoves  you  to  appreciate  your  good  fortune,"  he 
said  to  her.  "  To  be  young  and  elastic,  and  yet  old  enough 
and  wise  enough  to  discriminate  and  reflect,  and  to  come 
to  Italy  for  the  hrst  time — that  is  one  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  that  life  has  to  offer  us.  It  is  but  right  to 
remind  you  of  it,  so  that  you  may  make  the  most  of 
your  chances  and  may  not  accuse  yourself  later  of  having 
wasted  the  precious  season." 

Mary  looked  at  him,  smiling  intently,  and  went  to  the 
window  again.  "  I  expect  to  enjoy  it,"  she  said.  "  Don't 
be  afraid  ;  I  am  not  wasteful." 

"  I  am  afraid  we  are  not  qualified,  you  know,"  said 
Mrs.  Hudson.  "  We  are  told  that  you  must  know  so 
much,  that  you  must  have  read  so  many  books.  Our  taste 
has  not  been  cultivated.  When  I  was  a  young  lady  at 
school  I  remember  I  had  a  medal  Vith  a  pink  ribbon  for 
'  proficiency  in  ancient  history  ' — the  seven  kings,  or  is  it 
the  seven  hills'?  and  Quintus  Curtius  and  Julius  Csesar, 
and — and  that  period,  you  know.  I  believe  I  have  my 
medal  somewhere  in  a  drawer  now,  but  I  have  forgotten 
all  about  the  kings.  But  after  Roderick  came  to  Italy  wo 
tried  to  learn  something  about  it.  Last  winter  Mary  used 
to  read  Corinne  to  me  in  the  evenings,  and  in  the  mornings 
she  used  to  read  another  book  to  herself.  What  was  it, 
Mary,  that  book  that  was  so  long,  you  know — in  fifteen 
volumes  ? " 

"  It  was  Sismondi's  Italian  Republics,'^  said  Mary 
simply. 

Kowland  could  not  help  laughing ;  whereupon  Mary 
blushed.     "Did  you  finish  it?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes,  and  began  another — a  shorter  one — Eoscoe's  Leo 
the  Tenth.'' 

"  Did  you  find  them  interesting  %  " 

"  Oh  yes." 

"Do  you  like  history?" 

"  Some  of  it." 

"  That's  a  woman's  answer  !     And  do  you  like  art  ? " 

She  paused  a  moment.     "  I  have  never  seen  it !  " 

"  You  have  great  advantages  now,  my  dear,  with 
lioderick  and  Mr.  Mallet,"  said  Mrs.   Hudson.     *' I   am 


RODERICK  HUDSON-  217 

sure  no  young  lady  ever  had  such  advantages.  You  como 
straight  to  the  highest  authorities.  Roderick,  I  suppose, 
will  show  you  the  practice  of  art,  and  Mr.  Mallet,  perhaps, 
if  he  will  be  so  good,  will  show  you  the  theory.  As  an 
artist's  wife  you  ought  to  know  something  about  it." 

"  One  learns  a  good  deal  about  it  here  by  simply  living," 
said  Rowland ;  "  by  going  and  coming  about  one's  daily 
avocations." 

"  Dear,  dear,  how  wonderful  that  we  should  be  here  in 
the  midst  of  it !  "  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson.  "  To  think  of 
art  being  out  there  in  the  streets  !  We  didn't  see  much 
of  it  last  evening  as  we  drove  from  the  station.  But  the 
streets  were  so  dark,  and  we  were  so  frightened  !  But  we 
■are  very  easy  now ;  are  we  not,  Mary  1  " 

"  I  am  very  happy,"  said  Mary  gravely,  wandering  back 
to  the  window  again. 

Roderick  came  in  at  this  moment  and  kissed  his  mother, 
and  then  went  over  and  joined  his  betrothed.  Rowland 
sat  with  Mrs.  Hudson,  who  evidently  had  a  word  which 
she  deemed  of  some  value  for  his  private  ear.  She  followed 
Roderick  with  intensely  earnest  eyes. 

"  I  wish  to  tell  you,  sir,"  she  said,  "  now  very  grateful 
— how  very  thankful — what  a  happy  mother  I  am  !  I  feel 
as  if  I  owed  it  all  to  you.  To  find  my  poor  boy  so  hand- 
some, so  prosperous,  so  elegant,  so  famous — and  ever  to 
have  doubted  of  you !  What  must  you  think  of  me  'i 
You  are  our  guardian  angel,  sir.     I  often  say  so  to  Mary." 

Rowland  wore  in  response  to  this  speech  a  rather  in- 
scrutable countenance.  He  could  only  murmur  that  he 
was  glad  she  found  Roderick  looking  well.  He  had  of 
course  promptly  asked  himself  whether  it  would  be  the 
best  policy  just  to  give  her  a  word  of  warning — turn  the 
handle  of  the  door  through  which,  later,  disappointment 
might  enter.  But  he  had  determined  to  say  nothing,  and 
simply  to  wait  for  Roderick  to  find  effective  inspiration  in 
those  confidently  expectant  eyes.  It  was  to  be  supposed 
that  he  was  seeking  for  it  now ;  he  remained  some  time  at 
the  window  with  his  cousin.  But  at  last  he  turned  away 
and  came  over  to  the  fireside  with  a  contraction  of  the 
eyebrows  which  seemed  to  intimate  that  the  young  girl's, 
influence  was  for  the  moment  at  least  not  soothing.  She 
presently  followed  him,  and  for  an  instant  Rowland  observed 


218  RODEKICK  HUDSON. 

her  watching  him  as  if  she  thou^j^ht  him  strange.  "Strange 
enough,"  thought  Rowhmd,  "  he  may  seem  to  her  if  he 
will !  "  Eoderick  directed  his  glance  to  his  friend  with  a 
certain  peremptory  air  whicli — roughly  interpreted — was 
equivalent  to  a  re(|uest  to  share  the  intellectual  expense 
of  entertaining  the  ladies.  "Heaven  help  us!"  Rowland 
cried  within  himself ;  "  is  he  already  tired  of  them  1  " 

"  To-morrow  of  course  we  must  begin  to  put  you  through 
the  mill,"  Eoderick  said  to  his  mother.  "And  be  it 
hereby  known  to  Mallet  that  we  count  upon  him  to  turn 
the  wheel." 

"  I  will  do  as  you  please,  my  son,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson. 
"  So  long  as  I  have  you  with  me  I  don't  care  where 
I  go.  We  must  not  take  up  too  much  of  Mr.  Mallet's 
time." 

"  His  time  is  inexhaustible ;  he  has  nothing  under  the 
sun  to  do.  Have  you,  Rowland?  If  you  had  seen  the 
big  hole  I  have  been  making  in  it !  Where  will  you  go 
fir^?  You  have  your  choice — from  the  Scala  Santa  to 
the  Cloaca  Maxima." 

"Let  us  take  things  in  order,"  said  Rowland.  "We 
will  go  first  to  Saint  Peter's.  ]\Iiss  Garland,  I  hope  you 
are  impatient  to  see  Saint  Peter's." 

"I  should  like  to  go  first  to  Roderick's  studio,"  said 
Miss  Garland. 

"It's  a  very  nasty  place,"  said  Roderick.  -'But  do 
what  you  like." 

"  Yes  we  must  see  your  beautiful  things  before  we  can 
look  contentedly  at  anything  else,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson. 

"  I  have  no  beautiful  things,"  said  Roderick.  "  You 
may  see  what  there  is !  What  makes  you  look  so 
odd  1 " 

This  inquiry  was  abruptly  addressed  to  his  mother,  who 
in  response  glanced  appealingly  at  Mary,  and  raised  a 
startled  hand  to  her  smooth  hair. 

"No,  it's  your  face,"  said  Roderick.  "What  has 
happened  to  it  these  two  years  ?  It  has  changed  its 
expression." 

"Your  mother  has  prayed  a  great  deal,"  said  Mary, 
simply. 

"  I  didn't  suppos  of  course  it  was  from  doing  anything 
bad  !     It  makes  you  a  very  good  face — very  interesting^ 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  .219 

very  solemn.  It  has  very  fine  lines  in  it ;  something 
might  be  done  with  it."  And  Rowland  held  one  of  the 
candles  near  the  poor  lady's  head. 

She  was  covered  with  confusion.  "  My  son,  my  son," 
she  said  with  dignity,  "I  don't- understand  you." 

In  a  tiash  all  his  old  alacrity  had  come  to  him.  "  I 
suppose  a  man  may  admire^his  own  mother  !• "  he  cried. 
"If  you  please,  madam,  you  will  sit  to  me  for  that  head. 
I  see  it,  I  see  it  !  I  will  make  something  that  a  queen 
can't  get  done  for  her." 

Rowland  respectfully  urged  her  to  assent ;  he  saw 
Roderick  was  in  the  vein  and  would  probably  do  something 
eminently  original.  She  gave  her  promise  at  last  after 
many  soft  inarticulate  protests  and  a  frightened  petition 
that  she  might  be  allowed  to  keep  her  knitting. 

Rowland  returned  the  next  day,  with  plenty  of  zeal  for 
the  part  Roderick  had  assigned  to  him.  It  had  been 
arranged  that  they  should  go  to  Saint  Peter's.  Roderick 
was  in  high  good-humour,  and  in  the  carriage  was  watching 
his  'mother__with  a  fine  mixture  of  filial  and  professional 
interest.  ^Irs.  Hudson  looked  up  mistrustfully  at  the  tall 
shabby  houses,  and  grasped  the  side  of  the  barouche  in  her 
hand,  as  if  she  were  in  a  sail-boat  in  dangerous  waters. 
Rowland  sat  opposite  to  Miss  Garland.  She  was  totally 
oblivious  of  her  companions ;  from  the  moment  the 
carriage  left  the  hotel  she  sat  gazing  wide-eyed  and  ab- 
sorbed at  the  objects  about  them.*;  If  Rowland  had  felt 
disposed  he  might  have  made  a  joke  of  her  intense  serious- 
ness. From  time  to  time  he  told  her  the  name  of  a  place 
or  a  building,  and  she  nodded  without  looking  at  him. 
When  they  emerged  into  the  great  square  between 
Bernini's  colonnades  she  laid  her  hand  on  Mrs.  Hudson's 
arm  and  sank  back  in  the  carriage,  staring  up  at  the  vast 
yellow  facade  of  the  church.  Inside  the  church  Roderick 
gave  his  arm  to  his  mother,  and  Rowland  constituted 
himself  the  especial  guide  of  the  younger  lady.  He 
walked  with  her  slowly  everywhere  and  made  the  entire 
circuit,  telling  her  all  he  knew  of  the  history  of  the 
building.  This  was  a  great  deal,  but  she  listened  atten- 
tively, keeping  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  dome.  To  Rowland 
bimself  it  had  never  seemed  so  radiantly  sublime  as  at 
these  moments;   he  felt  almost  as  if  he  had  designed  it 


220  RODERICK  HUDSON. 


Jiimself  and  had  a  ri^'ht  to  be  proud  of  it.  He  left  Mary 
(jiarland  a  while  on  the  stops  of  the  choir,  where  she  had 
seated  herself  to  rest,  and  went  to  join  their  companions. 
Mrs.  Hudson  was  watching  a  great  circle  of  tattered 
contadini,  who  were  kneeling  before  the  imago  of  Saint 
Peter.  The  fashion  of  their  tatters  fascinated  her  ;  sho 
stood  gazing  at  them  in  a  sort  of  terrified  pity,  and  could 
not  be  induced  to  look  at  anything  else.  Rowland  went 
back  to  Mary  and  sat  down  beside  her. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  Europe  ? "  he  asked 
smiling. 

"  I  think  it's  dreadful  I  "  she  said  abruptly. 

"  Dreadful  ? " 

"  I  feel  so  strangely — I  could  almost  cry." 

"  How  is  it  that  you  foel  1  " 

"  So  sorry  for  the  poor  past,  that  seems  to  have  died 
here  in  my  heart  in  an  hour  !  " 

".But,  siirely,  you  are  pleased — you  are  interested." 
)"  I  am  overwhelmed.  Here  in  a  single  hour  everything 
is  changed.  It  is  as  if  a  wall  in  my  mind  had  been 
knocked  down  at  a  stroke.  Before  me  lies  an  immense 
new  world,  and  it  makes  the  old  one,  the  poor  little 
narrow  familiar  one  I  have  always  known,  seem  pitiful." 

"  But  you  didn't  come  to  Rome  to  keep  your  eyes 
fastened  on  that  narrow  little  world.  Forget  it,  turn 
your  back  on  it  and  enjoy  all  this." 

"  I  want  to  enjoy  it ;  but  as  I  sat  here  just  now,  looking 
up  at  that  golden  mist  in  the  dome,  I  seemed  to  sec  in  it 
the  vague  shapes  of  certain  people  and  things  at  home. 
To  enjoy,  as  you  say,  as  these  things  demand  of  one  to 
enjoy  them,  is  to  break  with  one's  past.  And  breaking 
is  a  pain  !  " 

"  Don't  mind  the  pain,  and  it  will  cease  to  trouble  you. 
Enjoy ,^  enjoy  ;  it  is  your  duty,      i^ours  especially  '  " 

"  Why  mine  especially  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am  very  sure  that  you  have  a  mind  formed 
to  do  justice  to  everything  interesting  and  beautiful.  You 
are  extremely  intelligent." 

"  You  don't  know,"  said  the  girl  simply. 

"  In  that  matter  one  feels.  I  really  think  that  I  know 
better  than  you.  I  don't  want  to  seem  patronising,  but  1 
suspect   that   you  are  a  capital  subject  for    development. 


RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Give  yourself  the  best  company,  trust  yourself,  let 
yourself  go  !  " 

She  looked  away  from  him  for  some  moments,  down  the 
gorgeous  vista  of  the  great  church.  "But  what  you  say," 
she  said  at  last,  "  means  change  I " 

"  Change  for  the  better  !  "  cried  Rowland. 

"  How  can  one  tell  1  As  one  stands  one  knows  the 
worst.  It  seems  to  me  very  frightful  to  develop,"  she 
added,  with  her  complete  smile. 

"  One  is  in  for  it  in  one  way  or  another,  and  one  might 
as  well  do  it  with  a  good  grace  as  with  a  bad  !  Since  one 
can't  escape  life  it  is  better  to  take  it  by  the  hand." 

"  Is  this  what  you  call  life  1  "  she  asked. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  '  this '  1 " 

"  Saint  Peter's — all  this  splendour,  all  Rome — pictures, 
ruins,  statues,  beggars,  monks." 

"It  is  not  all  of  it,  but  it  is  a  large  part  of  it.  All  these 
things  are  impregnated  with  life  ;  they  are  the  results  of 
an  old  and  complex  civilisation." 

"  An  old  and  complex  civilisation  :  I  am  afraid  I  don't 
like  that."     ' 

"  Don't  conclude  on  that  point  just  yet.  Wait  till  you 
have  tested  it.  While  you  wait  you  will  see  an  immense 
liumber  of  very  beautiful  things — things  that  you  are  made 
to  understand.  They  won't  leave  you  as  they  found  you ; 
then  you  can  judge.  Don't  tell  me  I  know  nothing  about 
your  understanding.     I  have  a  right  to  count  upon  it." , 

Mary  gazed  awhile  aloft  into  the  dome.  "  I  am  not  sure 
T  understand  that,"  she  said,  nodding  upward. 

"  I  hope  at  least  that  at  a  cursory  glance  it  pleases  you," 
said  Rowland.  "  You  needn't  be  afraid  to  tell  the  truth. 
What  strikes  some  people  is  that  it  is  so  remarkably 
small." 

"  Oh,  it's  large  enough  ;  it's  very  wonderful.  There  are 
things  in  Rome  then,"  she  added  in  a  moment,  turning  and 
looking  at  him,  "  that  are  very,  very  beautiful  ?  " 

"  Lots  of  them." 

"  Some  of  the  most  beautiful  things  in  the  .vorld  1  " 

"  Unquestionably." 

"  What  are  they  1  which  things  have  most  beauty  1 " 

"  That  is  according  to  taste.  I  should  say  the  antique 
sculpture." 


< 


222  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  How  long  will  it  take  to  seo  it  all ;  to  know  at  least 
something  about  it  ?  " 

"  You  can  see  it  all,  as  far  as  mere  seeing  goes,  in  a 
fortnight.  But  to  know  it  is  a  thing  for  one's  leisure. 
The  more  time  you  spend  in  the  midst  of  it,  the  more  you 
care  for  it."  After  a  moment's  hesitation  he  went  on, 
"  Why  should  you  grudge  time  ?  It's  all  in  your  way, 
since  you  are  to  be  an  artist's  wife." 

"  I  have  thought  of  that,"  she  said.  "  It  may  be  that 
I  shall  always  live  here,  among  the  most  beautiful  things 
in  the  world  !  " 

"  Very  possibly  !  I  should  like  to  see  you  ten  years 
hence." 

"  I  dare  say  I  shall  seem  greatly  altered.  But  I  am 
sure  of  one  thing." 

"Of  whatr' 

"  That  for  the  most  part  I  shall  be  quite  the  same.  I 
ask  nothing  better  than  to  believe  the  fine  things  you  say 
about  my  understanding,  but  even  if  they  are  true  it 
won't  matter.  I  shall  be  what  I  was  made,  what  I  am 
now — a  young  woman  from  the  country  !  The  fruit  of  a 
civilisation  not  old  and  complex,  but  new  and  simple." 

"1  am  delighted  to  hear  it ;  that's  an  excellent  basis." 

"  Perhaps  if  you  show  me  anything  more  you  will 
grow    rather    tired    of    my    basis.       Therefore    I    warn 

you." 

"  I  am  not  frightened.  I  should  like  extremely  to  make 
a  request  of  you.  Bo  what  you  are,  be  what  you  choose  ; 
but  do,  sometimes,  as  I  tell  you." 

If  Rowland  was  not  frightened,  neither  perhaps  was  his 
companion ;  but  she  seemed  at  least  slightly  disturbed. 
She  proposed  that  they  should  join  the  others. 

Mrs.  Hudson  spoke  under  her  breath  ;  she  could  not  be 
accused  of  the  want  of  reverence  sometimes  attributed  to 
Protestants  in  tho  great  Catholic  temples.  "  Mary  dear," 
she  whispered,  "  suppose  we  had  to  kiss  that  dreadful  brass 
toe.  If  I  could  only  have  kept  our  door-knocker  at  ISTorth- 
ampton  as  bright  at  that !  I  think  it's  so  heathenish ;  but 
Roderick  cays  he  thinks  it's  sublime." 

Roderick  had  evidently,  grown  a  trifle  perverse.     "  It'sl 
sublimer  than  anything  that  your  religion  asks  you  to  do  I  " 
he  exclaimed. 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  223 

"  Surely  our  religion  sometimes  gives  us  very  difficult 
duties,"  said  Mary. 

"  The  duty  of  sitting  in  a  whitewashed  meeting-house 
and  listening  to  a  nasal  Puritan  !  I  admit  that's  difficult. 
But  it's  •  not  sublime.  I  am  speaking  of  ceremonies,  of 
forms.  It  is  in  my  line,  you  know,  to  make  much  of  forms. 
I  think  this  is  a  very  beautiful  one.  Couldn't  you  do  it  1  " 
he  demanded,  looking  at  his  cousin. 

She  looked  back  at  him  intently  and  then  shook  her 
head.     "  I  think  not !  " 

"  Why  not  r' 

''  I  don't  know  ;  I  couldn't !  " 

During  this  little  discussion  our  four  friends  were 
standing  near  the  venerable  image  of  Saint  Peter,  and 
a  squalid,  savage  looking  peasant,  a  tattered  ruffian  of  the 
most  orthodox  Italian  aspect,  had  been  performing  his 
devotions  before  it.  He  turned  away  crossing  himself, 
and  Mrs.  Hudson  gave  a  little  shudder  of  horror. 

"  After  that,"  she  murmured,  "  I  suppose  he  thinks  he 
is  as  good  as  any  one  !  And  here  is  another.  Oh,  what 
a  beautiful  person  !  " 

A  young  lady  had  approached  the  sacred  effigy,  after 
having  wandered  away  from  a  group  of  companions.  She 
kissed  the  brazen  toe,  touched  it  with  her  forehead,  and 
turned  round  facing  our  friends.  Rowland  then  recognised 
Christina  Light.  He  was  stupefied  at  this  indication  that 
she  had  suddenly  embraced  the  Catholic  faith,  for  it  was 
but  a  few  weeks  before  that  she  had  treated  him  to  a 
passionate  profession  of  indifference.  Had  she  entered  the 
church  to  put  herself  en  o^egle  with  what  was  expected  of  a 
Princess  Casamassima  ?  While  Rowland  was  mentally 
asking  these  questions  she  was  approaching  him  and  his 
friends  on  her  way  to  the  great  altar.  At  first  she  did 
not  perceive  them. 

Mary  Garland  had  been  gazing  at  her.  "  You  told  me," 
she  said  gently  to  Rowland,  '*  that  Rome  contained  some  of 
the  most  beautiful  things  in  the  world.  This  surely  is  one 
of  them  !  " 

At  this  moment  Christina's  eye  met  Rowland's  and 
before  giving  him  any  sign  of  recognition  she  glanced 
rapidly  at  his  companions.  She  saw  Roderick,  but  she 
gave  him  no  bow ;  she  looked  at  Mrs.  Hudson,  she  looked 


224  KODEIIICK  HUDSON. 

at  Mary  Garland.  At  Mary  Garland  slie  looked  fixedly, 
pijercin<;ly,  frt)ni  head  to  foot,  the  slow  pace  at  which  she 
advancv^d'  making  it  possil)le.  Then  suddenly,  as  if  she 
had  perceived  Koderick  for  the  first  time,  she  gave  him  a 
charming  nod,  a  radiant  smile.  In  a  moment  he  was  at 
her  side.  She  stopped,  and  he  stood  talking  to  her;  she 
continued  to  look  at  Mary. 

"  Wily,  Koderick  know  s  her  ! "  cried  Mrs.  Hudson  in  an 
awe-struck  whisper.  "  I  supposed  she  was  some  great 
princess." 

"  She  is — almost  !  "  said  Kowland.  "  She  is  the  most 
beautiful  girl  in  Europe,  and  Roderick  has  made  lier 
bust." 

"  Her  bust  1  Dear,  dear  !  "  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson, 
vaguely  shocked.     "  What  a  strange  bonnet !  " 

"  She  has  very  strange  eyes,"  said  Mary,  turning 
away. 

The  two  ladies,  with  Eowland,  began  to  descend  towards 
the  door  of  the  chui-ch.  On  their  way  they  passed  Mrs. 
Light,  the  Cavaliere  and  the  poodle,  and  Rowland  informed 
his  companions  of  the  relation  in  which  these  personages 
stood  to  Rodericks  young  lady. 

"  Think  of  it,  Mary  !  "  said  Mrs.  Hudson.  What  splendid 
people  he  must  know  !  Ko  wonder  he  found  Northampton 
dull !  " 

"  I  like  the  sad  little  old  gentleman,"  said  Maryc 

"  Why  do  you  call  him  sad  ? "  Rowland  asked,  struck 
with  the  observation. 

"  He  seems  so  !  "  she  answered  simply. 

As  they  Avere  reaching  the  door  they  were  overtaken  by 
Roderick,  whose  interview  Avith  Miss  Light  had  perceptibly 
brightened  his  eye.  "  So  you  are  acquainted  with  prin- 
cesses ?  "  said  his  mother  softly  as  they  passed  into  the 
portico. 

"  Miss  Light  is  not  a  princess  !  "  said  Roderick  curtly. 

"  But  ]Mr.  Mallet  says  so,"  urged  Mrs.  Hudson,  rather 
disappointed. 

"  I  meant  that  she  was  going  to  be,"  said  Rowland. 

"It's  by  no  means  certain  that  she  is  even  going  to 
be  !  "  Roderick  answered. 

"  Ah,"  said  Rowland.  "  I  give  it  up  !  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  225 


XVITI. 


Roderick  almost  immediately  demanded  that  his  mother 
should  sit  to  him  at  his  studio  for  her  portrait,  and  Rowland 
ventured  to  add  another  word  of  urgency.  If  Roderick's 
idea  had  really  taken  hold  of  him  it  was  an  immense  pity 
his  inspiration  should  be  wasted  ;  inspiration  in  these  days 
had  become  too  precious  a  commodity.  It  was  arranged 
therefore  that  for  the  present,  during  the  mornings,  Mrs. 
Hudson  should  place  herself  at  her  son's  service.  This 
involved  but  little  sacrifice,  for  the  good  lady's  appetite  for 
antiquities  was  diminutive  and  bird-like,  the  usual  round 
of  galleries  and  churches  fatigued  her,  and  she  was  glad  to 
purchase  immunity  from  sight-seeing  by  a  regular  afternoon 
drive.  It  became  natural  in  this  way  that  Mary  Garland 
having  her  mornings  free,  Rowland  should  propose  to  be 
her  cicerone.  He  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  accuse 
Roderick  of  neglect  of  a  girl  who  was  united  to  him  by  a 
double  bond,  for  it  was  natural  that  the  inspirations  of 
a  man  of  genius  should  be  both  capricious  and  imperious ; 
but  of  course  he  wondered  how  Mary  felt,  as  the  young 
man's  promised  wife,  on  being  so  summarily  handed  over 
to  another  man  to  be  entertained.  However  she  felt,  he 
was  certain  he  should  learn  very  little  about  it.  There 
had  been  between  them  none  but  indirect  allusions  to  her 
intended  marriage ;  and  Rowland  had  no  desire  to  discuss 
it  more  largely,  for  he  had  no  quarrel  with  matters  as  they 
stood'.  They  wore  the  same  delightful  aspect  through  the 
lovely  month  of  May,  and  the  ineli'able  charm  of  Rome  at 
that  period  seemed  but  the  radiant  sympathy  of  nature 
with  his  happy  opportunity.  The  weather  was  divine; 
each  particular  morning,  as  he  walked  from  his  lodging  to 
Mrs.  Hudson's  modest  inn,  seemed  to  have  a  blessing  upon 
it.  The  elder  lady  had  usually  gone  off  to  the  studio, 
and  he  found  Mary  sitting  alone  at  the  open  window,  turn- 
ing the  leaves  of  some  book  of  artistic  or  antiquarian 
reference  that  he  had  given  her.  She  always  had  a  smile, 
she  was  always  eager,  alert,  responsive.  She  might  be 
grave  by  nature,  she  might  be  sad  by  circumstance,  she 

P 


226  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

might  have  secret  doubts  aud  pangs,  but  she  was  essentially 
young  and  strong  and  fresh  and  able  to  enjoy.  Her  enjoy- 
ment was  not  especially  demonstrative,  but  it  was  curiously 
diligent.  Kowland  felt  that  it  was  not  amusement  and 
sensation  that  she  coveted,  but  knowledge — facts  that  she 
might  noiselessly  lay  away  piece  by  piece  in  the  fragrant 
darkness  of  her  serious  mind,  so  that  under  this  head  at 
least  she  should  not  be  a  perfectly  portionless  bride.  She 
never  merely  pretended  to  understand ;  she  let  things  go  in 

,  her  modest  fashion  at  the  moment ;  but  she  watched  them 
on  their  way  over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  and  when  her 
attention  seemed  not  likely  to  be  missed  it  went  hurrying 
after  them  and  ran  breathless  at  their  side  and  begged 
them  for  the  secret.  TRowland  took  a  high  satisfaction  in 
observing  that  she  never  mistook  the  second-best  for  the 
best,  and  that  when  she  was  in  the  presence  of  a  master- 

\  piece  she  recognised  the  importance  of  the  occasion.  She 
said  many  things  which  he  thought  very  profound — that  is 
if  they  really  had  the  fine  intention  he  suspected.  This 
point  he  usually  tried  to  ascertain ;  but  he  was  obliged  to 
proceed  cautiously,  for  in  her  mistrustful  shyness  it  seemed 
to  her  that  cross-examination  must  necessarily  be  ironical. 
She  wished  to  know  just  where  she  was  going — what  she 
would  gain  or  lose.  //This  was  partly  on  account  of  the 
purity  and  rigidity  of  a  mind  that  had  not  lived  with  its 
door  ajar  upon  the  high-road  of  thought,  for  passing  ideas 
to  drop  in  and  out  at  their  pleasure,  but  had  made  much 
of  a  few  long  visits  from  guests  cherished  and  honoured — 
guests  whose  presence  was  a  solemnity. ''"But  it  was  even 
more  because  Mary  was  conscious  of  assort  of  growing 
^elf-respect,  a  sense  of  devoting  her  life  not  to  her  own 
ends,  but  to  those  of  another  whose  life  would  be  large 
and  brilliant.  She  had  been  brought  up  to  think  a  great 
deal  of  "  nature "  and  nature's  innocent  laws ;  but  now 
Rowland  had  talked  to  her  ingeniously  of  culture;  her 
fresh  imagination  aad  responded,  and  she  was  pursuing  this 
mysterious  object  into  retreats  where  the  need  for  some 
intellectual  effort  gave  her  an  air  of  charming  tension. 
She  wished  to  be  very  sure,  to  take  only  the  best,  knowing 
it  to  be  the  best.  There  was  something  exquisite  in  her 
pious  desire  to  improve  herself,  and  Rowland  encouraged 
it  none  the  less  that  its  fruits  were  not  for  him.     In  spite 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  227 

of  h(3r  lurking  rigidity  and  angularity  it  was  very  evident 
that  she  had  a  native  sense  of  beauty  which  only  asked  to 
become  pliable,  and  in  which  already  at  moments  she  lost 
herself  delightedly.  For  all  that  she  was  not  demonstrative, 
that  her  manner  was  simple  and  her  small-talk  of  no  very 
ample  flow  ;  for  all  that,  as  she  has  said,  she  was  a  young 
woman  from  the  country,  and  the  country  was  "West  Naza- 
reth, and  West  Nazareth  was  in  its  way  a  stubborn  little 
fact,  she  was  feeling  the  direct  influence  of  the  great 
amenities  of  the  world,  and  they  were  shaping  her  with 
a  divinely  intelligent  touch,  i"  Oh,  exquisite  virtue  of 
circumstance !  "  cried  Rowland  to  himself,  "  that  takes 
us  by  the  hand  and  leads  us  forth  out  of  corners  where 
perforce  our  attitudes  are  a  trifle  contracted,  and  beguiles 
us  into  testing  unappreciated  faculties!"  When  he  said 
to  Mary  Garland  that  he  wished  he  might  see  her  ten 
years  hence,  he  was  paying  mentally  an  equal  compliment 
to  circumstance  and  to  the  girl  herself.  Capacity  was 
there,  it  could  be  freely  trusted  ;  observation  would  have 
but  to  sow  its  generous  seed.  "  A  superior  woman  " — the 
idea  had  harsh  associations,  but  he  watched  it  imaging 
itself  in  the  vagueness  of  the  future  with  a  kind  of 
hopeless  confidence. 

\They  went  a  great  deal  to  Saint  Peter's,  and  Mary  con- 
fessed very  speedily  that  to  climb  the  long  low  yellow 
steps,  beneath  the  huge  florid  fagade,  and  then,  pushing  the 
ponderous  leathern  apron  of  the  door,  find  oneself  a  mere 
sentient  point  in  that  brilliant  immensity,  was  a  sen- 
sation of  which  the  keenness  never  failed  to  renew  itself fj 
In  those  days  the  hospitality  of  the  Vatican  had  not  been 
curtailed,  and  it  was  an  easy  and  delightful  matter  to  pass 
from  the  gorgeous  church  to  the  solemn  company  of  the 
antique  marbles.  Here  Rowland  had  with  his  companion 
a  great  deal  of  talk,  and  found  himself  expounding  sesthe- 
tics  a  perte  de  vue.  He  discovered  that  she  made  notes 
of  her  likes  and  dislikes  in  a  new-looking  little  memoran- 
dum book,  and  he  wondered  to  what  extent  she  reported 
his  own  discourse.  These  were  charming  hours.  The 
galleries  had  been  so  cold  all  winter  that  Rowland  bad 
been  an  exile  from  them  ;  but  now  that  the  sun  was  already 
scorching  in  the  great  square  between  the  colonnades,  where 
the    twin    fountains   flashed    almost    fiercely,    the    marble 

p  2 


228  TIODERICK  HUDSON. 

coolness  of  the  long  image-bordered  vistas  made  them  a 
delightful  refnge.  The  great  herd  of  tourists  had  almost 
departed,  and  our  two  friends  often  found  themselves  for 
half  an  hour  at  a  time  in  solo  and  tranquil  possession 
of  the  beautiful  Braccio  Nuovo.  Here  and  there  was  an 
open  window,  where  they  lingered  and  leaned,  looking  out 
into  the  warm  dead  air,  over  the  towers  of  the  city,  at 
the  soft-hued  historic  hills,  at  the  stately  shabby  gardens 
of  the  palace,  or  at  some  sunny  empty  grass-grown  court 
lost  in  the  heart  of  the  labyrinthine  pile.  They  went  some- 
times into  the  chambers  painted  by  Raphael,  and  of  course 
paid  their  respects  to  the  Sistine  Chapel ;  but  Mary's 
evident  preference  was  to  linger  among  the  statues.  Once, 
when  they  were  standing  before  that  noblest  of  sculptured 
portraits,  the  so-called  Demosthenes,  in  the  Braccio  Nuovo, 
she  made  the  only  spontaneous  allusion  to  her  plighted 
faith  that  had  yet  fallen  from  her  lips.  "  I  am  so 
glad,"  she  said,  "  that  Roderick  is  a  sculptor  and  not 
a  painter." 

The  allusion  resided  almost  exclusively  in  the  extreme 
earnestness  with  which  the  words  were  uttered.  Rowland 
asked  her  the  reason  of  her  gladness. 

"  It's  not  that  painting  is  not  fine,"  she  said,  "  but  that 
sculpture  is  finer.     It  is  more  manly  !  " 

Rowland  tried  at  times  to  make  her  talk  about  herself, 
but  in  this  she  had  little  skill.  She  seemed  to  him  so 
much  older,  so  much  more  pliant  to  social  uses  than  when 
he  had  seen  her  at  home,  that  he  wished  to  make  her  tell 
him  what  she  had  been  doing  all  those  two  years.  He 
began  by  telling  her  that  she  was  very  different.  "  It 
appears,  then,"  she  said,  "  that  after  all  one  can  grow  in 
America  !  " 

"  Unquestionably,  if  one  has  a  motive.  Your  growth 
then  was  unconscious  ?  You  did  not  watch  yourself  and 
water  your  roots  1  " 

She  paid  no  heed  to  his  question.  "  I  am  willing  to 
grant,"  she  said,  "  that  Europe  is  more  delightful  than 
I  supposed ;  and  I  don't  admit  that  I  had  thought  meanly 
of  its  charms.  But  you  must  admit  that  America  is  better 
than  you  had  supposed." 

"I  have  not  a  fault  to  find  with  the  country  which 
produced  you !  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  229 

"  And  yet  you  want  me  to  change— to  assimilate  Europe 
I  suppose  you  would  call  it." 

"I  have  felt  that  desire  only  on  general  principles. 
Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  feel  now  )  America  has  made  you 
thus  far ;  let  America  finish  you  !  I  should  like  to  ship 
you  back  without  delay  and  see  what  becomes  of  you. 
That  sounds  uncivil,  and  I  admit  there  is  a  cold  intellectual 
curiosity  in  it." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  The  charm  is  broken  ;  the  thread 
is  snapped  !     I  prefer  to  remain  here." 

Invariably,  when  he  was  inclined  to  make  of  something 
they  were  talking  of  a  direct  application  to  herself,  she 
wholly  failed  to  assist  him ;  she  made  no  response.  Once, 
with  a  spark  of  ardent  irritation,  he  told  her  she  was  very 
"  secretive."  At  this  she  coloured  a  little,  and  he  said  that 
in  default  of  any  larger  confidence  it  would  at  least  be  a 
satisfaction  to  make  her  confess  to  that  charge.  But  even 
this  satisfaction  she  denied  him,  and  his  only  revenge  was 
in  making,  two  or  three  times  afterwards,  a  softly  ironical 
allusion  to  what  he  called  by  way  of  jocosity  her  slyness. 
He  told  her  that  she  was  what  is  termed  in  French  a 
sournoise.  "  Yery  good,"  she  answered,  almost  indifferently, 
"  and  now  please  tell  me  again — I  have  forgotten  it^ — what 
you  said  an  ^architrave  '  was." 

It  was  on  the  occasion  of  her  asking  him  a  question  of 
this  kind  that  he  charged  her — still  by  way  of  jocosity, 
but  in  a  tone  in  which,  if  she  had  been  curious  in  the 
matter,  she  might  have  detected  a  spark  of  restless  ardour 
— with  having  an  insatiable  avidity  for  facts.  "  You  are 
always  snatching  at  information,"  he  said ;  "  you  will 
never  consent  to  have  any  disinterested  conversation." 

She  frowned  a  little,  as  she  always  did  when  he  arrested 
their  talk  upon  something  personal.  But  this  time  she 
assented,  and  said  that  she  knew  she  was  eager  for 
facts.  "One  must  make  hay  while  the  sun  shines,"  she 
added.  "  I  must  lay  up  a  store  of  learning  against  dark 
days.  After  all,  I  can't  believe  that  I  shall  be  always 
in  Rome." 

He  knew  he  had  divined  her  real  motive ;  but  he  felt 
that  if  he  might  have  said  to  her — what  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  say — that  fortune  possibly  had  a  bitter  dis- 
appointment in  store  for  her,  she  would  have  been  capable 


280  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

of  answerinf^  immediately  after  the  first  sense  of  pain, 
"  Say  then  that  I  am  laying  up  resources  for  solitude  !  " 

But  all  the  accusations  were  not  his  own.  He  had  been 
waiting  once  while  they  talked — they  were  dili'ering  and 
arguing  a  little — to  see  whether  she  would  take  her 
forefinger  out  of  her  Murray,  into  which  she  had  inserted 
it  to  keep  her  place.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  say 
why  this  point  interested  him,  for  he  had  not  the  slightest 
real  apprehension  that  she  was  dry  or  pedantic.  The 
simple  human  truth  was  that  the  poor  fellow  was  jeaiesus 
of..ficJLgnce.  In  preaching  science  to  her  he  had  over-esti- 
mated his  powers  of  self-effacement.  Suddenly,  sinking 
science  for  the  moment,  she  looked  at  him  very  frankly  and 
began  to  frown.  At  the  same  time  she  let  the  Murray 
slide  down  to  the  ground,  and  he  was  so  charmed  with 
this  circumstance  that  he  made  no  movement  to  pick  it 
up. 

"  You  are  uncommonly  inconsistent,  Mr.  Mallet,'  she 
said. 

"Oh,  nothing  is  more  common' than  inconsistency." 

"  Not  of  your  elaborate  kind.  That  first  day  that  we 
were  in  Saint  Peter's  you  said  things  that  inspired  me. 
You  bade  me  plunge  into  all  this.  I  was  all  ready ;  I  only 
wanted  a  little  push  ;  you  gave  me  a  great  one ;  here  I 
am  up  to  my  neck !  And  now,  instead  of  helping  me 
to  swim,  you  stand  on  the  shore — the  shore  of  superior 
information — and  fling  pebbles  at  me  !  " 

"  Pebbles,  my  dear  young  lady  ?  They  are  life-preservers  ! 
I  must  have  played  my  part  very  ill." 

"  Your  part  1  What  is  your  part  supposed  to  have 
beenr' 

He  hesitated  a  moment.  "That  of  usefulness  pure  and 
simple." 

"  I  don't  understand  you  !  "  she  said  ;  and  picking  up 
her  Murray  she  fairly  buried  her  nose  in  it. 

That  evening  he  said  something  to  her  which  she  perhaps 
understood  as  little.  "  Do  you  rememlier  my  begging  you 
the  other  day  to  do  occasionally  as  I  told  you  ?  It  seemed 
to  me  you  tacitly  consented." 

"  Very  tacitly  I  " 

"  I  have  never  yet  really  presumed  on  your  consent. 
."But  now  I  should  like  you  to  do  this :  whenever  you  catch 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  231 

me  in  tlie  act  of  what  you  call  flinging  pebbles,  ask  me  the 
meaning  of  some  architectural  term.  I  shall  know  what 
you  mean— a  word  to  the  wise  !  " 

fOne  morning  they  spent  among  the  ruins  of  the  Palatine, 
that  sunny  desolation  of  crumbling  overtangled  fragments, 
half  excavated  and  half  identified,  known  as  the  Palace  of 
the  Caesars.  Nothing  in  Rome  is  more  interesting  than 
this  confused  and  crumbling  garden,  where  you  stumble  at 
every  step  on  the  disinterred  bones  of  the  past ;  where 
damp  frescoed  corridors,  relics  possibly  of  Nero's  Golden 
House,  serve  as  gigantic  bowers,  and  where  in  the  spring- 
time you  may  sit  on  a  Latin  inscription  in  the  shade  of  a 
flowering  almond-tree  and  admire  the  composition  of  the 
Campagna.  The  day  left  a  deep  impression  on  Rowland's 
mind,  partly  owing  to  its  intrinsic  sweetness,  and  partly 
because  his  companion  on  this  occasion  let  her  Hurray  lie 
unopened  for  an  hour,  and  asked  several  questions  which 
had  no  connection  with  the  Consuls  and  the  Caesars.  She 
had  begun  by  saying  that  it  was  coming  over  her  after  all 
that  Rome  was  a  ponderously  sad  place.  The  sirocco  was 
gently  blowing,  the  air  was  heavy,  she  was  tired,  she  looked 
a  little  pale. 

"  Everything,"  she  said,  "  seems  to  say  that  all  things 
are  vanity.  If  one  is  doing  something  I  suppose  one  feels 
a  certain  strength  within  one  to  say  otherwise.  But  if 
one  is  idle,  surely  it  is  depressing  to  live  year  after  year 
.  among  the  ashes  of  things  that  once  were  mighty.  If  I 
were  to  remain  here,  I  should  either  become  permanently 
'  low,'  as  they  say,  or  I  would  tg-ke  refuge  in  some  practical 
occupation." 

"  What  occupation  ?  " 

"  I  would  open  a  school  for  those  beautiful  little  beggars ; 
though  I  am  sadly  afraid  I  should  never  bring  myself  to 
scold  them." 

"  I  have  no  practical  occupation,"  said  Rowland,  "  and 
yet  I  have  kept  up  a  certain  spirit." 

"  I  don't  call  you  unoccupied." 

"  It  is  very  good  of  you.  Do  you  remember  our  talking 
about  that  at  Northampton  ?  " 

"During  that  walk  in  the  woods'?  Perfectly.  Has 
your  coming  abroad  succeeded  for  yourself  as  well  as  you 
"hoped  ?  " 


232  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  I  think  I  may  say  that  it  has  turned  out  as  well  as 
I  expected." 

''  Are  you  ha})py  1  " 

"Don't  I  look  so?" 

*'  So  it  seems  to  me.  But " — and  she  hesitated  a 
moment — "  I  imagine  you  look  happy  whether  you  are  so 
or  not." 

"  I  am  like  that  ancient  comic  mask  that  we  saw  just 
now  in  yonder  excavated  fresco  ;  I  am  made  to  grin." 

"  Shall  you  come  back  here  next  winter  ?  " 

"  Very  probably." 

"  Are  you  settled  here  for  ever  1  " 

*'  '  For  ever'  is  a  long  time.  I  live  only  from  year  to 
year." 

"  Shall  you  never  marry  1  " 

Rowland  gave  a  laugh.  "  '  For  ever  ' — '  never  ! '  You 
handle  large  ideas.     I  have  not  taken  a  vow  of  celibacy." 

"  Shouldn't  you  like  to  marry  1 " 

"  I  should  like  it  immensely." 

To  this  she  made  no  rejoinder  ;  but  presently  she  asked, 
"  Why  don't  you  write  a  book  1 " 

Rowland  laughed — this  time  more  freely.  "  A  book  ! 
What  book  should  I  write  1  " 

"  A  history  ;  something  about  art  or  antiquities." 
y   "  I  have  neither  the  learning  nor  the  talent." 

She  made  no  attempt  to  contradict  him;  she  simply 
said  she  had  supposed  otherwise.  "  You  ought  at  any 
rate,"  she  continued  in  a  moment,  "  to  do  something  for 
yourself." 

"  For  myself  ?  I  should  have  supposed  that  if  ever  a 
man  seemed  to  live  for  himself — " 

'•  I  don't  know  how  it  seems,"  she  interrupted — "  to 
careless  observers.  But  we  know — we  know  that  you  have 
lived — a  great  deal  for  ws." 

Her  voice  trembled  slightly,  and  she  brought  out  the 
last  words  with  a  little  jerk. 

"  She  has  had  that  speech  on  her  conscience,"  thought 
Rowland  ;  "  she  has  been  thinking  she  owed  it  to  me,  and 
it  seemed  to  her  that  now  was  her  time  to  make  it  and 
have  done  with  it." 

She  went  on  in  a  way  which  confirmed  these  reflections, 
speaking  with  due  solemnity.     "  You  ought  to  be  made  to 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  233 

know  very  well  what  we  all  feel.  Mrs.  Hudson  tells  me 
that  she  has  told  you  what  she  feels.  Of  course  Roderick 
has  expressed  himself.  I  have  been  wanting  to  thank  you 
too ;  I  do,  from  my  heart." 

Rowland  made  no  answer ;  his  face  at  this  moment 
resembled  the  tragic  mask  much  more  than  the  comic. 
But  Mary  was  not  looking  at  him ;  she  had  taken  up  her 
eternal  Murray. 

In  the  afternoon  she  usually  drove  with  Mrs.  Hudson, 
but  Rowland  frequently  saw  her  again  in  the  evening. 
He  was  apt  to  spend  half  an  hour  in  the  little  sitting-room 
at  the  hotel-pension  on  the  slope  of  the  Pincian,  and 
Roderick,  who  dined  regularly  with  his  mother,  was  pre- 
sent on  these  occasions.  Rowland  saw  him  little  at  other 
times,  and  for  three  weeks  no  observations  passed  between 
them  on  the  subject  of  Mrs.  Hudson's  advent.  To  Row- 
land's vision,  as  the  weeks  elapsed,  the  benefits  to  proceed 
from  the  presence  of  the  two  ladies  remained  shrouded  in 
mystery.  Roderick  was  peculiarly  inscrutable.  He  was 
preoccupied  with  his  work  on  his  mother's  portrait,  which 
was  taking  a  very  happy  turn  ;  and  often  when  he  sat 
silent  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  legs  outstretched, 
his  head  thrown  back  and  his  eyes  on  vacancy,  it  was  to 
be  supposed  that  his  fancy  was  hovering  about  the  half- 
shaped  image  in  his  studio,  exquisite  even  in  its  immaturity. 
He  said  little,  but  his  silence  did  not  of  necessity  imply 
disaffection,  for  he  evidently  found  it  a  deep  personal 
luxury  to  lounge  away  the  hours  in  an  atmosphere  so 
charged  with  feminine  tenderness.  He  was  not  alert,  he 
suggested  nothing  in  the  way  of  excursions  (Rowland  was 
the  prime  mover  in  such  as  were  attempted),  but  he  con- 
formed passively  at  least  to  the  tranquil  temper  of  the 
two  women  and  made  no  harsh  comments  nor  sombre 
allusions.  Rowland  wondered  whether  he  had  after  all 
done  his  friend  injustice  in  denying  him  the  sentiment 
of  duty.  He  refused  invitations,  to  Rowland's  knowledge, 
in  order  to  dine  at  the  sordid  little  table-d'hote ;  wherever 
his  spirit  might  be  he  was  present  in  the  flesh  with  religious 
constancy.  Mrs.  Hudson's  felicity  betrayed  itself  in  a 
remarkable  tendency  to  finish  her  sentences  and  wear  her 
best  black  silk  gown.  Her  tremors  had  trembled  away  ; 
she  was  like  a  child  who  discovers  that  the  shaggy  monster 


234  RODERICK  HUDSOK. 

it  has  so  long  been  afraid  to  toiieh  is  an  inanimate  terror 
compounded  of  straw  and  saw-dust,  and  that  it  is  even  a 
safe  audacity  to  tickle  its  nose.  As  to  whether  the  love- 
knot  of  whicli  Mary  Garland  had  the  keeping  still  held 
firm,  who  should  pronounce  1  The  young  girl,  as  we  know, 
did  not  wear  it  on  her  sleeve.  She  always  sat  at  the 
table,  near  the  candles,  with  a  piece  of  needlework.  This 
was  the  attitude  in  which  Rowland  had  first  seen  her,  and 
he  thought,  now  that  he  had  seen  her  in  several  others, 
that  it  was  not  the  least  becoming. 


XIX. 

There  occurred  at  last  a  couple  of  days  during  which 
Rowland  was  unable  to  go  to  the  hotel.  Late  in  the 
evening  of  the  second  Roderick  came  into  his  room.  In 
a  few  moments  he  announced  that  he  had  finished  the  bust 
of  his  mother 

"And  it's  magnificent  "  he  declared.  "It's  one  of 
the  best  things  I  have  done." 

"I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,"  said  Rowland.  "Never 
again  talk  to  me  about  your  inspiration  being  dead." 

"  Why  not  1  This  may  be  its  last  kick  !  I  feel  very 
tired.  But  it's  a  masterpiece,  though  I  do  say  it.  They 
tell  us  we  owe  so  much  to  our  parents.  Well,  I  have  paid 
the  filial  debt  handsomely  !  "  He  walked  up  and  down 
the  room  a  few  moments,  with  the  purpose  of  his  visit 
evidently  still  hanging  fire.  "  There  s  one  thing  more  I 
want  to  say,"  he  presently  resumed.  "  I  feel  as  if  I  ought 
to  tell  you  !  "  He  stopped  before  Rowland  with  his  head 
high  and  his  brilliant  glance  unclouded.  "  Your  invention 
is  a  failure  !  " 

"My  invention?  "  Rowland  repeated. 

"  Bringing  out  my  mother  and  Mary." 

"  A  failure  ?  " 

"  It's  no  use  !     They  don't  help  me.'" 

Rowland     had     fancied    that     Roderick    had    no     more 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  235 

surprises  for  him ;  but  he  was  now  staring  at  him 
wide-eyed. 

"  They  bore  me  ! "  Roderick  went  on. 

"  Oh,  oh  !  "  cried  Rowland. 

"  Listen,  listen  1  "  said  Roderick  with  perfect  gentleness. 
"  I  am  not  complaining  of  them  ;  I  am  simply  stating 
a  fact.  I  am  very  sorry  for  them;  I  am  greatly  dis- 
appointed." 

"  Have  you  given  them  a  fair  trial  1  " 

"  Shouldn't  you  say  so  ?  It  seems  to  me  I  have  behaved 
beautifully." 

"  You  have  done  very  well ;  I  have  been  building  great 
hopes  on  it." 

"  I  have  done  too  well  then.  After  the  first  forty-eight 
hours  my  own  hopes  collapsed.  But  I  determined  to 
fight  it  out ;  to  stand  within  the  temple  ;  to  let  the  spirit 
of  the  Lord  descend  !  Do  you  want  to  know  the  result  1 
Another  week  of  it  and  I  shall  begin  to  hate  them.  I 
shall  want  to  poison  them." 

"  Miserable  boy  !  "  cried  Rowland.  '^  They  are  the  most 
perfect  of  women  !  " 

"  Yery  likely  !  But  t-hey  mean  no  more  to  me  than  & 
Bible  text  means  to  an  atheist  !  " 

"  I  can  say  this,"  said  Rowland  in  a  moment.  "  I  don't 
pretend  to  understand  the  state  of  your  relations  with 
Miss  Garland." 

Roderick  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  let  his  hands  drop 
at  his  sides.  "  She  adores  me  !  That's  the  state  of  my 
relations."     And  he  smiled  strangely. 

"  Have  you  broken  off  your  engagement  V 

"  Broken  it  off  1     You  can't  break  a  ray  of  moonshine." 

"  Have  you  absolutely  no  affection  for  her  1" 

Roderick  placed  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  held  it  there 
a  moment.     "  Dead — dead — dead  !  "  he  said  at  last. 

"  I  wonder,"  Rowland  observed  presently,  "  if  you  really 
know  what  a  charming  girl  she  is.  She's  an  awfully 
charming  girl." 

"  Evidently— or  I  should  not  have  cared  for  her  !  " 

"  Don't  you  care  for  her  now  then  ?  " 

"  Oh,  don't  force  a  fellow  to  say  rude  things  !  " 

''  Well,  I  canhonly  say  that  you  don't  know  what  you 
are  giving  up." 


236  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Roderick  gave  a  quickened  glance.  *'  Do  you  know  so 
well?" 

"  You  must  admit  that  you  have  allowed  me  time  to 
find  out !  " 

Koderick  smiled,  I  may  almost  say  sympathetically. 
"  Well,  you  haven't  wasted  it  !  " 

Rowland's  thoui^hts  were  crowding  upon  him  fast. 
If  Roderick  was  resolute^  why  should  he  be  gainsaid  %  If 
Mary  was  to  be  sacrificed,  why  in  that  way  try  to  save  her  % 
There  was  another  way ;  it  only  needed  a  little  presump- 
tion to  make  it  possi])le.  Rowland  tried  to  summon 
presumption  to  his  aid  ;  but  whether  it  should  come  or  not 
it  was  to  find  conscience  there  before  it.  Conscience  had 
only  three  words,  but  they  were  cogent.  "  For  her  sake 
— for  her  sake,"  it  dumbly  murmured,  and  Rowland  re- 
sumed his  argument.  "  I  don't  know  what  I  wouldn't 
do,"  he  said,  "  rather  than  that  JVIiss  Garland  should  be 
ill-used." 

"  There  is  one  thing  to  be  said,"  Roderick  answered 
reflectively.     ''  She  is  very  strong." 

"Well  then,  if  she's  strong,  believe  that  with  a  longer 
chance,  a  better  chance,  she  will  still  regain  your  aftec- 
tion." 

"  Do  you  know  what  you  ask  \  "  cried  Roderick.  ''  Make 
love  to  a  girl  I  hate?  " 

"  You  hate  ?  " 

"  As  her  lover  I  should  hate  her  !  Do  you  really  urge 
my  marrying  a  woman  who  would  bore  me  to  death  ?  I 
shouldn't  be  long  in  letting  her  know  it,  and  then  pray 
where  would  she  be  ? "  Roderick  asked  impatiently. 

Rowland  walked  the  length  of  the  room  a  couple  of 
times  and  then  stopped  suddenly.  "  Go  your  way  then  ! 
Say  all  this  to  her,  not  to  me  !  " 

"  To  her  %  I  am  afraid  of  her ;  I  want  you  to 
help  me." 

"My  dear  Roderick,"  said  Rowland  with  an  eloquent 
smile,  "  I  can't  help  you  any  more  !  " 

Roderick  frowned,  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  took 
his  hat.  "  Oh  well,"  he  said,  "  I  am  not  so  afraid  of  her 
as  all  that !  "     And  he  turned  as  if  to  depart. 

"  Sto]) !  ''  cried  Rowland,  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  the 
door. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  237 

Roderick  paused  and  stood  waiting  with  his  irritated 
brow. 

"  Come  back ;  sit  down  there  and  listen  to  me. 
Of  anything  you  say  in  your  present  state  of  mind 
you  will  live  most  bitterly  to  repent.  You  don't  know 
what  you  really  think ;  you  don't  know  what  you 
really  feel.  You  don't  know  your  own  mind  ;  you 
don't  do  justice  to  Miss  Garland.  All  this  is  impossible 
here,  under  these  circumstances.  You  are  blind,  you 
are  deaf,  you  are  under  a  spell.  To  break  it  you  must 
leave  Rome." 

"  Leave  Rome  !     Rome  was  never  so  dear  to  me." 

"That's  not  of  the  smallest  consequence.  Leave  it 
instantly." 

"  And  where  shall  I  go  '?  " 

"Go  to  some  place  where  you  may  be  alone  with  your 
mother  and  your  cousin." 

"  Alone  ?     You  will  not  come  1 " 

"  Oh,  if  you  wish  it  I  will  come." 

Roderick,  inclining  his  head  a  little,  looked  at  his  friend 
askance.  "  I  don't  understand  you,"  he  said ;  "  I  wish  you 
liked  Mary  either  a  little  less  or  a  little  more." 

Rowland  felt  himself  colouring,  but  he  paid  no  heed  to 
this  speech.  "  You  ask  me  to  help  you,''  he  went  on.  "  On 
these  present  terms  I  can  do  nothing.  But  if  you  will  be 
perfectly  quiet  with  regard  to  Miss  Garland  for  a  couple 
of  months,  and  meanwhile  leave  Rome,  leave  Italy,  I  will 
do  what  I  can  to  *  help  you,'  as  you  say,  in  the  event  of 
your  still  wishing  to  be  liberated." 

"  I  must  do  without  your  help  then !  Your  terms 
are  impossible.  I  will  leave  Rome  at  the  time  I  have 
always  intended — at  the  end  of  June.  My  rooms  and  my 
mother's  are  taken  till  then ;  all  my  arrangements  are 
made  accordingly.     Then  I  will  go — not  before." 

"  You  are  not  frank,"  said  Rowland.  "  Your  real  reason 
for  staying  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  rooms." 

Roderick's  face  betrayed  neither  embarrassment  nor 
resentment.  "  If  I  am  not  frank,  it's  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life.  Since  you  know  so  much  about  my  real  reason, 
let  me  hear  it  !  No,  stop  !  "  he  suddenly  added,  "  I  won't 
trouble  you.  You  are  right,  I  have  a  motive.  On  the 
twenty-fourth  of  June,  Christina  Light  is  to  be  married.    ^ 


238  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

I  take  an  immense  interest  in  all  that  concerns  her,  and 
I  wish  to  be  present  at  her  marriage." 

"  But  you  said  the  other  day  at  Saint  Peter's  that  it 
was  by  no  means  certain  it  would  take  place." 

"  Apparently  I  was  wrong  ;  I  am  told  that  the  invitations 
are  going  out." 

Rowland  felt  that  it  would  bo  vain  to  remonstrate,  and 
that  the  only  thing  for  him  was  to  make  the  best  bargain 
possible.  "  If  I  offer  no  farther  opposition  to  your  waiting 
for  Christina's  marriage,"  he  said,  "  will  you  promise,  mean- 
while and  afterwards,  for  a  certain  period,  to  defer  to  my 
judgment — to  say  or  do  nothing  that  may  give  the  alarm 
to  Miss  Garland ']  " 

"  For  a  certain  period  1  What  period  ? "  Roderick 
demanded. 

"  Ah,  don't  screw  me  down  so  !  Don't  you  understand 
that  I  have  taken  you  away  from  her,  that  I  suffer  in 
every  nerve  in  consequence,  and  that  I  must  do  what  I 
can  to  give  you  back  1 ' ' 

"  Do  what  you  can  then,"  said  Roderick,  putting  out  his 
hand.  "  Do  what  you  can  !  "  His  tone  and  his  hand- shake 
seemed  to  constitute  a  promise,  and  upon  this  they  parted. 

Roderick's  bust  of  his  mother,  whether  or  no  it  were  a 
discharge  of  what  he  called  the  filial  debt,  was  at  least  an 
admirable  production.  Rowland  at  the  time  it  was  finished 
met  Gloriani  one  evening,  and  this  unscrupulous  genius 
immediately  began  to  ask  questions  about  it.  "  I  am  told 
our  high-flying  friend  has  come  down,"  he  said.  "  He  has 
been  doing  a  queer  little  old  woman." 

"  A  queer  little  old  woman  !  "  Rowland  exclaimed.  "  My 
dear  sir,  she  is  Hudson's  mother." 

"  All  the  more  reason  for  her  being  queer  !  It  is  a  bust 
for  terra-cotta,  eh  ?  " 

"  By  no  means  ;  it  is  for  marble." 

"  That's  a  pity.  It  was  described  to  me  as  a  charming 
piece  of  quaintness :  a  little  demure,  thin-lipped  old  lady, 
with  her  head  on  one  side  and  the  pretties't  wrinkles  in 
the  world — a  sort  of  fairy  godmother." 

"  Go  and  see  it,  and  judge  for  yourself,"  said  Rowland. 

"  No,  I  see  I  shall  be  disappointed.  It's  quite  the  other 
thing,  the  sort  of  thing  they  put  into  the  campo-santos.  I 
wish  that  crazy  boy  would  listen  to  me  for  ten  minutes  !  " 


RODERICK  PIUDSON.  289 

But  a  day  or  two  later  Rowland  met  him  again  in  tlie 
street,  and,  as  they  were  near,  proposed  they  should 
adjourn  to  Roderick's  studio.  He  consented,  and  on  enter- 
ing they  found  the  young  master.  Roderick's  demeanour 
to  Gloriani  was  never  conciliatory,  and  on  this  occasion 
blank  indifference  was  apparently  all  he  had  to  offer.  But 
Gloriani,  like  a  genuine  connoisseur,  cared  nothing  for 
his  manners ;  he  cared  only  for  his  skill.  In  the  bust  of 
Mrs.  Hudson  there  was  something  almost  touching ;  it  was 
an  exquisite  example  of  a  ruling  sense  of  beauty.  The  poor 
lady's  small  neat  timorous  face  had  certainly  no  great 
character,  but  Roderick  had  produced  its  sweetness,  its 
mildness,  its  minuteness,  its  still  maternal  passion,  with  the 
most  unerring  art.  The  thing  was  perfectly  unflattered 
and  yet  admirably  tender;  it  was  the  poetry  of  fidelity. 
Gloriani  stood  looking  at  it  a  long  time  intently.  Roderick 
wandered  away  into  the  neighbouring  room. 

"  I  give  it  up  ! "  said  the  sculptor  at  last.  "  I  don't 
understand  it." 

"  But  you  like  it  ^  "  said  Rowland. 

"  Like  it  1  It's  a  pearl  of  pearls.  Tell  me  this,"  he 
added ;  "  is  he  very  fond  of  his  mother — is  he  a  very 
good  son  1  "     And  he  gave  Rowland  a  sharp  look. 

"  Why,  she  adores  him,"  said  Rowland,  smiling. 

"  That's  not  an  answer !  But  it's  none  of  my  business. 
Only  if  I,  in  his  place,  being  suspected  of  having — what 
shall  I  call  it  1 — a  cold  heart,  managed  to  do  that  piece  of 
work,  oh,  oh !  I  should  be  called  a  pretty  lot  of  names. 
Charlatan,  poseur,  arrangeur  !  But  he  can  do  as  he  chooses  ! 
My  dear  young  man,  I  know  yoa  don't  like  me,"  he  went 
on  as  Roderick  came  back.  "  It's  a  pity ;  you  are  strong 
enough  not  to  care  about  me  at  all.  You  are  very 
strong." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Roderick  curtly.  "I  am  very 
weak  !  " 

"  I  told  you  last  year  that  you  wouldn't  keep  it  up. 
I  was  a  great  ass.     You  will !  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon — I  won't !  "  retorted  Roderick. 

"  Though  I'm  a  great  ass  all  the  same,  eh  ?  Well,  call 
me  what  you  will,  so  long  as  you  turn  out  this  sort  of 
thing !  I  don't  suppose  it  makes  any  particular  difference, 
but  I  should  like  to  say  now  that  I  believe  in  you." 


240  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Roderick  stood  looking  at  him  for  a  moment  with  a 
strange  hardness  in  his  face.  It  flushed  slowly,  and  two 
glittering  angry  tears  filled  his  eyes.  It  was  the  first  time 
Rowland  had  ever  seen  them  there ;  he  saw  them  but  once 
again.  Poor  Gloriani,  he  was  sure,  had  never  in  his  life 
spoken  with  less  of  the  mocking  spirit ;  but  to  Roderick 
there  was  evidently  a  touch  of  sarcasm  in  his  profession  of 
faith.  He  turned  away,  muttering  a  passionate  impreca- 
tion. Gloriani  was  accustomed  to  deal  with  complex  pro- 
blems, but  this  time  he  was  hopelessly  puzzled.  "  What's 
the  matter  with  him  1  "  he  asked  simply. 

Rowland  gave  a  sad  smile  and  touched  his  forehead. 
'*  Genius,  I  suppose." 

Gloriani  sent  another  parting,  lingering  look  at  the 
bust  of  Mrs.  Hudson.  "Well,  it's  deuced  perfect,  it's 
deuced  simple  ;  I  do  believe  in  him  !  "  he  said.  "  But  I 
am  glad  I  am  not  a  genius.  It  makes,"  he  added  with  a 
laugh,  as  he  looked  for  Roderick  to  wave  him  good-bye 
and  saw  his  back  still  turned,  "  it  makes  a  more  sociable 
studio !  " 

Rowland  had  purchased  as  he  supposed  temporary 
tranquillity  for  Mary  Garland  ;  but  his  own  humour  in 
these  days  was  not  especially  peaceful.  He  was  attempting 
in  a  certain  sense  to  lead  the  ideal  life,  and  he  found  it  at 
the  least  not  easy.  The  days  passed,  but  brought  with 
them  no  ofiicial- invitation  to  Christina  Light's  wedding. 
He  occasionally  met  her,  and  he  occasionally  met  Prince 
Casamassima;  but  the  two  were  always  se^mrate ;  they 
were  apparently  taking  their  happiness  in  the  inexpressive 
and  isolated  manner  proper  to  peoj^le  of  social  eminence. 
Rov^land  continued  to  see  Madame  Grandoni,  for  whom  he 
felt  a  contirmed  esteem.  He  had  always  talked  to  her 
with  frankness,  but  now  he  made  her  a  confidant  of  all 
his  hidden  dejection.  Roderick  and  Roderick's  concerns 
had  been  a  common  theme  with  him,  and  it  was  in  the 
natural  course  to  talk  of  Mrs.  Hudson's  arrival  and  Mary 
Garland's  fine  smile.  Madame  Grandoni  was  an  intelligent 
listener,  and  she  lost  no  time  in  putting  his  case  for  him 
in  a  nutshell.  "At  one  moment  you  tell  me  the  girl  is 
plain,"  she  said  ;  "  the  next  you  tell  me  she  is  pretty.  I 
will  invite  them,  and  I  shall  see  for  myself.  But  one 
thing  is  very  clear ;  you  are  in  love  with  her ! '' 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  241 

Kowland  for  all  answer  glanced  round  to  see  that  no 
one  heard  her. 

"More  than  that,"  she  added,  "you  have  been  in  lovo 
with  her  these  two  years.  There  was  that  certain  some- 
thing about  you  !....!  knew  you  were  of  what  wo 
Germans  call  a  subjective  turn  of  mind  ;  but  you  had 
a  touch  of  it  more  than  was  natural.  Why  didn't  you 
tell  me  at  once  1  You  would  have  saved  me  a  groat  deal 
of  trouble.  And  poor  Augusta  Blanch ard  too !  "  And 
herewith.  Madame  Grandoni  communicated  a  pertinent 
fact :  Augusta  Blanchard  and  Mr.  Leavenworth  were 
going  to  make  a  match.  The  young  lady  had  been  staying 
for  a  month  at  Albano,  and  as  Mr.  Leavenworth  had  been 
dancing  attendance  the  event  was  a  matter  of  course. 
Rowland,  who  had  been  lately  reproaching  himself  with 
a  failure  of  attention  to  Miss  Blanchard 's  doings,  made 
some  such  observation. 

"  But  you  did  not  nnd  it  so  !  "  cried  his  hostess.  "  It 
was  a  matter  of  course,  perhaps,  that  Mr.  Leavenworth, 
who  seems  to  be  going  about  Europe  with  the  sole  view  of 
picking  up  furniture  for  his  '  home,'  as  he  calls  it,  should 
think  Miss  Blanchard  a  very  handsome  morceau;  but  it 
vv^as  not  a  matter  of  course — or  it  needn't  have  been — that 
she  should  be  willing  to  become  a  sort  of  superior  table- 
ornament.  She  would  have  accepted  you  if  you  had 
tried." 

"You  are  supposing  the  insupposable,"  said  Rowland. 
"  She  never  gave  me  a  particle  of  encouragement." 

"  What  would  you  have  had  her  do  ?  The  poor  girl 
did  her  best,  and  I  am  sure  that  when  she  accepted 
Mr.  Leavenworth  she  thought  of  you." 

"  She  thought  of  the  pleasure  her  marriage  would  give 
me." 

"  Ay,  pleasure  indeed  !  She  is  a  thoroughly  good  girl, 
but  she  has  her  little  grain  of  feminine  spite,  as  well  as 
the  rest.  Well,  he  is  richer  than  you,  and  she  will  have 
what  she  wants ;  but  before  I  forgive  you  I  must  wait  and 
see  this  new  arrival — what  do  you  call  her? — jNIiss  Garland. 
If  I  like  her  I  will  forgive  you ;  if  I  don't  I  shall  always 
bear  you  a  grudge." 

Rowland  answered  that  he  was  sorry  to  forfeit  any 
advantage  she  might  offer  him,  but  that  his  exculpatory 


242  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

passion  for  Miss  Garland  was  a  figment  of  her  fancy. 
Miss  Garland  was  engaged  to  another  man— he  himself 
had  no  claims. 

''  Well,  then,"  said  Madame  Grandoni,  "  if  I  like  her  we 
will  have  it  that  you  ouglit  to  he  in  love  with  her.  If  you 
fail  in  this  it  will  be  a  double  misdemeanour.  The  man 
she  has  acce[)ted  doesn't  care  a  straw  for  her.  Leave  me 
alone  and  I  will  tell  her  what  I  think  of  the  man  she 
hasn't  !  " 

As  to  Christina  Light's  marriage  Madame  Grandoni 
could  say  nothing  positive.  The  young  girl  of  late  had 
made  her  several  flying  visits,  in  the  intervals  of  the 
usual  pre-matrimonial  shopping  and  dress-fitting  ;  she  had 
spoken  of  the  event  with  a  toss  of  her  head,  as  a  matter 
which  with  a  wise  old  friend  who  viewed  things  in  their 
essence  she  need  not  pretend  to  treat  as  a  solemnity.  It 
was  for  Prince  Casamassima  to  do  that.  "  It  is  what  they 
call  a  marriage  of  reason,"  she  once  said.  "That  meano 
you  know  a  marriage  of  madness  ! " 

"  What  have  you  said  in  the  way  of  advice  ]  "  Kowland 
said. 

"  Very  little,  but  that  little  has  been  a  good  word  for 
the  Prince.  I  know  nothing  of  the  mysteries  of  the  young 
lady's  heart.  It  may  be  a  gold-mine,  but  at  any  rate  it's 
at  the  bottom  of  a  very  long  shaft.  But  the  marriage  in 
itself  is  an  excellent  marriage.  It's  not  only  brilliant,  but 
it's  safe.  I  think  Christina  is  quite  capable  of  making  it 
a  means  of  misery  ;  but  there  is  no  position  that  would  be 
sacred  to  her.  Casamassima  is  an  irreproachable  young 
man  ;  there  is  nothing  against  him  but  that  he  is  a  prince. 
It  is  not  often,  I  fancy,  that  a  prince  has  been  put  through 
his  paces  at  this  rate.  No  one  knows  the  wedding-day  ; 
the  cards  of  invitation  have  been  printed  half  a  dozen 
times  over  with  a  different  date  ;  each  time  Christina  has 
destroyed  them.  There  are  people  in  Rome  who  are  furious 
at  the  delay  ;  they  want  to  get  away  ;  they  are  in  a  dreadful 
fright  about  the  fever,  but  they  are  dying  to  see  the 
wedding,  and  if  the  day  were  fixed,  they  would  make  their 
arrangements  to  wait  for  it.  I  think  it  very  passible  that 
after  having  kept  them  for  a  month  and  been  the  cause 
of  a  dozen  cases  of  malaria,  Christina  will  be  married  at 
sunrise  by  an  old  friar,  with  simply  the  legal  witnesses." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  243 

"  It  is  true,  then,  that  she  has  become  a  Catholic  ?  " 

"  So  she  tells  me.  One  day  she  got  up  in  the  depths  of 
despair  ;  at  her  wits'  end,  I  suppose,  in  other  words,  for  a 
new  sensation.  Suddenly  it  occurred  to  her  that  the 
Catholic  Church  might  after  all  hold  the  key — might  give 
her  what  she  wanted  ;  she  sent  for  a  priest ;  he  happened  to 
be  a  clever  man  and  he  contrived  to  interest  her.  She  put 
on  a  black  dress  and  a  black  veil,  and,  looking  handsomer 
than  ever,  she  rustled  into  the  Catholic  church.  The 
Prince,  who  is  very  devout  and  who  had  her  heresy  sorely 
on  his  conscience,  was  thrown  into  an  ecstasy.  May  she 
never  have  a  caprice  that  pleases  him  less  !  " 

Rowland  had  already  asked  Madame  Grandoni  what  to 
her  perception  was  the  present  state  of  matters  between 
Christina  and  Roderick  ;  and  he  now  repeated  his  question 
with  some  earnestness  of  apprehension.  "The  girl  is  so 
deucedly  dramatic,"  he  said,  "  that  I  don't  know  what  coup 
de  thedtre  she  may  have  in  store  for  us.  Such  a  stroke  was 
her  turning  Catholic ;  such  a  stroke  would  be  her  some 
day  making  her  curtsey  to  a  disappointed  world  as  Princess 
Casamassima,  married  enfamille.  She  might  do— she  may 
do — something  that  would  make  even  more  starers  !  I  am 
prepared  for  anything."^ 

"  You  mean  that  she  might  run  away  with  your  sculptor, 
eh  ?" 

"  I  am  prepared  for  anything  !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he's  ready  %  ' 

"  Do  you  think  that  she  is  %  " 

"  They're  a  precious  pair  !  This  is  what  I  think.  Yon 
by  no  means  exhaust  the  subject  when  you  say  that 
Christina  is  dramatic.  It's  my  belief  that  in  the  course 
of  her  life  she  will  do  a  certain  number  of  things  from 
disinterested  passion.  She's  immeasurably  proud,  and  if 
that  is'  often  a  fault  in  a  good  woman,  it  may  be  a  merit 
in  a  naughty  one.  She  needs  to  think  well  of  herself ; 
she  knows  a  fine  character  easily  when  she  meets  one ;  she 
hates  to  suffer  by  comparison,  even  though  the  comparison 
be  made  by  herself  alone  ;  and  when  the  estimate  she  may 
have  made  of  herself  grows  vague  she  needs  to  do  some- 
thing to  give  it  a  definite  impressive  form.  What  she  will 
do  in  such  a  case  will  be  better  or  worse,  according  to  her 
opportunity ;  but  I  imagine  it  will  generally  l)e  something 

Q  2 


244  IIODEPJCK  HUDSON. 

that  will  drive  her  mother  to  despair ;  something  of  the 
sort  usually  termed  '  unworldly.' " 

liowland,  as  he  was  taking  his  leave,  after  some  farther 
exchange  of  opinions,  rendered  Christina  the  tribute  of  a 
deeply  meditative  sigh.  "  She  has  bothered  me  half  to 
death,"  he  said,  "  but  somehow  I  can't  manage  as  I  ought 
to  hate  her.  I  admire  her  half  the  time  and  a  good  part 
of  the  rest  I  pity  her." 

''  I  think  as  a  general  thing  I  pity  her  !  "  said  Madame 
Grandoni. 

This  enlightened  woman  came  the  next  day  to  call  upon 
the  two  ladies  from  Northampton.  She  carried  their  shy 
affections  by  storm,  and  made  them  promise  to  drink  tea 
with  her  on  the  evening  of  the  morrow.  Her  visit  was  an 
epoch  in  the  life  of  poor  Mrs.  Hudson,  who  did  nothing  but 
make  sudden  desultory  allusions  to  her  for  the  next  thirty- 
six  hours.  "  To  think  of  her  being  a  foreigner  !  "  she  would 
exclaim,  after  much  intent  reflection,  over  her  knitting  ; 
"  she  speaks  so  beautifully  !  "  Then  in  a  little  while, 
"  She  wasn't  so  much  dressed  as  you  might  have  expected. 
Did  you  notice  how  easy  it  was  in  the  waist  1  I  wonder 
if  that's  the  fashion  V  Or,  "  She's  very  old  to  wear  a 
hat ;  I  should  never  dare  to  wear  a  hat !  "  Or,  "  Did  you 
notice  her  hands'? — very  pretty  hands  for  such  a  stout 
person.  A  great  many  rings,  but  nothing  very  handsome. 
I  suppose  they  are  hereditary."  Or,  "  She's  certainly  not 
handsome,  but  she  looks  wonderfully  clever.  I  wonder 
why  she  doesn't  have  something  done  to  her  teeth." 
Rowland  also  received  a  summons  to  Madame  Grandoni's 
tea-drinking,  and  went  betimes,  as  he  had  been  requested. 
He  was  eagerly  desirous  to  lend  his  mute  applause  to  Mary 
Garland's  debut  in  the  Roman  social  world.  The  two  ladies 
had  arrived  with  Roderick,  silent  and  careless,  in  atten- 
dance. Miss  Blanchard  was  also  present,  escorted  by  Mr. 
Leavenworth,  and  the  party  was  completed  by  a  couple  of 
dozen  artists  of  both  sexes  and  various  nationalities.  It 
was  a  friendly  and  easy  assembly,  like  all  Madame 
Grandoni's  parties,  and  in  the  course  of  the  evening  there 
was  some  excellent  music.  People  played  and  sang  for 
Madame  Grandoni  on  easy  terms  who  elsewhere  were  not 
to  be  heard  for  the  asking.  She  was  herself  a  superior 
musician,  and  singers  found  it  a  privilege  to  perform  to 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  245 

her  accompaniment.  Rowland  talked  to  various  persons, 
but  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  his  attention  visibly  wan- 
dered ;  he  could  not  keep  his  eyes  ofl:  Mary  Garland. 
Madame  Grandoni  had  said  that  he  sometimes  spoke  of 
her  as  pretty  and  sometimes  as  plain  ;  to-night  if  he  had 
had  occasion  to  describe  her  appearance  he  would  have 
called  her  beautiful.  She  was  dressed  more  than  he  had 
ever  seen  hef";  it  was  becoming,  and  gave  her  a  deeper 
colour  and  a  brighter  presence.  Two  or  three  persons  were 
apparently  witty  people,  for  she  sat  listening  to  them  with 
her  brilliant  natural  smile.  Rowland,  from  an  opposite 
corner,  reflected  that  he  had  never  varied  in  his  apprecia-  \ 
tion  of  Miss  Blanchard's  classic  contour,  but  that  somehow  j. 
to-night  it  impressed  him  hardly  more  than  an  effigy  1 
stamped  upon  a  coin  of  low  value.  Roderick  could  not  1 
be  accused  of  rancour,  for  he  had  approached  Mr.  l^eaven- 
worth  with  unstudied  familiarity,  and,  lounging  against  the 
wall  with  hands  in  pockets,  was  discoursing  to  him  with 
candid  serenity.  Now  that  he  had  done  him  an  imper- 
tinence he  evidently  found  him  less  intolerable.  Mr. 
Leavenworth  stood  stirring  his  tea  and  silently  opening 
and  shutting  his  mouth,  without  looking  at  the  young 
sculptor,  like  a  large  drowsy  dog  snapping  at  flies.  Row- 
land had  found  it  disagreeable  to  be  told  Miss  Blanchard 
would  have  married  him  for  the  asking,  and  he  would  have 
felt  some  embarrassment  in  going  to  speak  to  her  if  his 
modesty  had  not  found  incredulity  so  easy.  The  facile 
side  of  a  union  with  Miss  Blanchard  had  never  been 
present  to  his  mind  ;  it  had  struck  him  as  a  thing,  in  all 
ways,  to  be  compassed  with  a  great  effort.  He  had  half- 
an-hour's  talk  with  her ;  a  farewell  talk  as  it  seemed  to 
him — a  farewell  not  to  a  real  illusion,  but  to  the  idea  that 
for  him  in  that  matter  there  could  ever  be  an  acceptable 
pis-aller.  He  congratulated  Miss  Blanchard  upon  her 
engagement,  and  she  received  his  good  wishes  with  a 
touch  of  primness.  But  she  was  always  a  trifle  piim, 
even  when  she  was  quoting  Mrs.  Browning  and  George 
Sand,  and  this  harmless  defect  did  not  prevent  her  respond- 
ing on  this  occasion  that  Mr.  Leavenworth  had  a  "  glorious 
heart,"  Rowland  wished  to  manifest  an  extreme  regard, 
but  towards  the  end  of  the  talk  his  zeal  relaxed  and  he 
fell  a-thinking  that  a  certain  natural  ease  in  a  woman  was 


246  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  most  delightful  thing  in  the  world.  There  was  Christina 
Light,  who  had  too  much,  and  here  was  Miss  Blanchard, 
who  had  too  little,  and  there  was  Mary  Garland,  who  hud 
just  the  right  amount. 

He  went  to  Madame  Grandoni  in  an  adjoining  room, 
where  she  was  pouring  out  tea. 

"I  will  make  you  an  excellent  cup,"  she  said,  "because 
I  have  forgiven  you." 

He  looked  at  her,  answering  nothing ;  but  he  swallowed 
his  tea  with  great  gusto  and  a  slight  deepening  of  his 
colour ;  by  all  of  which  one  would  have  known  that  he 
was  gratified.  In  a  moment  he  intimated  that,  in  so  far 
as  he  had  sinned,  he  had  forgiven  himself. 

"  She  is  a  delightful  creature/'  said  Madame  Grandoni. 
"  She  has  all  sorts  of  qualities.  I  have  taken  a  great 
fancy  to  her;  she  must  let  me  make  a  friend  of  her." 

"  She  is  very  plain,"  said  Rowland  slowly,  "  very  simple, 
very  ignorant." 

"  Which,  being  interpreted,  means,  *  She  is  very  hand- 
some, very  subtle,  and  has  read  hundreds  of  volumes  on 
winter  evenings  in  the  country.'  " 

"  You  are  a  veritable  sorcere3S,"  cried  Rowland  ;  "  you 
frighten  me  away  !  "  As  he  was  turning  to  leave  her, 
there  rose  above  the  hum  of  voices  in  the  drawing-room 
the  sharp  grotesque  note  of  a  barking  dog.  Their  eyes 
met  in  a  glance  of  intelligence. 

"  There  is  the  sorceress ! "  said  Madame  Grandoni. 
"The  sorceress  and  her  necromantic  poodle  !  "  And  she 
hastened  back  to  the  post  of  hospitality. 

Rowland  followed  her  and  found  Christina  Light  stand- 
ing in  the  middle  of  the  drawing-room  and  looking  about 
in  perplexity.  Her  poodle,  sitting  on  his  haunches  and 
gazing  at  the  company,  had  apparently  been  expressing  a 
sympathetic  displeasure  at  the  absence  of  a  welcome.  But 
in  a  moment  Madame  Grandoni  had  come  to  the  young 
girl's  relief  and  Christina  had  tenderly  kissed  her  hostess. 

"  I  had  no  idea,"  said  Christina,  surveying  the  assembly, 
"  that  you  had  such  a  lot  of  grand  people,  or  I  would  not 
have  come  in.  The  servant  said  nothing  ;  he  took  me  for 
an  invitee.  I  came  to  spend  a  neighbourly  half-hour  ;  you 
know  I  haven't  many  left  !  It  was  too  dismally  dreary 
at  home.     I  hoped  I  should  find  you  alone,  and.  1  brought 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  247 

Stenterello  to  play  with  the  cat.  I  don't  know  that  if 
I  had  known  about  all  this  I  should  have  dared  to  come 
in  ;  but  since  I  have  stumbled  into  the  midst  of  it  I  beg 
you  to  let  me  stay.  I  am  not  dressed,  but  am  I  very 
hideous?  I  will  sit  in  a  corner  and  no  one  will  notice  me. 
My  dear  sweet  lady,  do  let  me  stay  !  Pray,  why  didn't 
A'ou  ask  mel  I  never  have  been  to  a  little  party  like  this. 
They  must  be  very  charming.  No  dancing — tea  and 
conversation  1  No  tea,  thank  you  ;  but  if  you  could  spare 
a  biscuit  for  Stenterello  ;  a  sweet  biscuit  please.  Really, 
why  didn't  you  ask  me  1  Do  you  have  these  things  often  '? 
Madame  Grandoni,  it's  very  unkind  !  "  And  the  young 
girl,  who  had  delivered  herself  of  the  foregoing  succession 
of  sentences  in  her  usual  low,  cool,  penetrating  voice, 
uttered  these  last  words  with  a  certain  tremor  of  feeling. 
"  I  see,"  she  went  on,  "  I  do  very  well  for  balls  and  great 
banquets,  but  when  people  wish  to  have  a  cosy,  friendly, 
comfortable  evening,  they  leave  me  out  with  the  big 
flower-pots  and  the  gilt  candlesticks." 

"  I  am  sure  you  are  welcome  to  stay,  my  dear,"  said 
Madame  Grandoni,  "  and  at  the  risk  of  displeasing  you  I 
must  confess  that  if  I  didn't  invite  you  it  was  because  you 
are  too  grand.  Your  dress  will  do  very  well,  with  its 
fifty  flounces,  and  there  is  no  need  of  your  going  into  a 
corner.  Indeed,  since  you  are  here,  I  propose  to  have  the 
glory  of  it.  You  must  remain  where  my  people  can  see 
you." 

"  They  are  evidently  determined  to  do  that  by  the  way 
they  stare.  Do  they  think  I  intend  to  dance  a  tarantella  ? 
Who  are  they  all ;  do  I  know  them  1  "  [^And  lingering  in 
the  middle  of  the  room,  with  her  arm  passed  into  Madame 
Grandoni' s,  she  let  her  eyes  wander  slowly  from  group  to 
group.  They  were  of  course  observing  her.  Standing  in 
the  little  circle  of  lamplight,  with  the  hood  of  an  Eastern 
burnous  shot  w^ith  silver  threads  falling  back  from  her 
beautiful  head,  one  hand  gathering  together  its  voluminous 
shimmering  folds  and  the  other  playing  with  the  silken 
top-knot  on  the  uplifted  head  of  ner  poodle,  she  was  a 
figure  of  radiant  picturesqueness. ;  She  seemed  to  be  a  sort 
of  extemporised  tableau  vivant.  "Rowland's  position  made 
it  decoming  for  him  to  speak  to  her  without  delay.  As 
she  looked  at  him  he  saw  that,  judging  by  the  light  of  her 


248  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

beautiful  eyes,  she  was  in  a  humoisr  of  which  she  had  not 
yet  treated  him  to  a  speciincu.  In  a  simpler  person  he 
Avould  have  called  it  ex.juisite  kindness  ;  but  in  this  young 
lady's  deportment  the  llower  was  one  thing  and  the  perfume 
another.  ''  Tell  me  about  these  people,"  she  said  to  him. 
'*  I  had  no  idea  there  wore  so  many  people  in  Rome  I  have 
not  seen.  What  are  they  all  talking  about  1  It's  all  very 
rlever,  I  suppose,  and  <|uite  beyond  me.  There  is  Miss 
Blanchard  sitting  as  usual  in  prohle  against  a  dark  object. 
kShe  is  like  a  head  on  a  postage  stamp.  And  there  is  that 
nice  little  old  lady  in  black,  Mrs.  Hudson.  What  a  dear 
little  woman  for  a  mother  !  Comme  elle  est  yroiyreite  I  And 
the  other,  the  Jiancce,  of  course  she's  here.  Ah,  I  see  !  " 
She  paused  ;  she  was  looking  intently  at  Mary  Garland. 
Rowland  measured  the  intentness  of  her  glance  and 
suddenly  acquired  a  conviction.  "  I  should  like  so  much 
to  know  her!"  she  said  turning  to  Madame  Grandoni. 
"She  has  a  charming  face;  I  am  sure  she  is  a  kind  of 
saint.  I  wish  very  much  you  would  introduce  me.  No, 
on  second  thoughts  I  would  rather  you  didn't.  I  will 
speak  to  her  bravely  myself,  as  a  friend  of  her — what  do 
you  call  it  in  English? — ]iqt promesso."  Madame  Grandoni 
and  Rowland  exchanged  glances  of  baffled  conjecture,  and 
Christina  flung  off  her  burnous,  crumpled  it  together,  and 
with  uplifted  finger,  tossing  it  into  a  corner,  gave  it  in 
charge  to  her  poodle.  He  stationed  himself  upon  it  on  his 
haunches  with  upright  vigilance.  Chri.stina  crossed  the 
room  with  the  step  and  smile  of  a  ministering  angel,  and 
introduced  herself  to  the  young  lady  from  Northampton. 
She  had  once  told  Rowland  that  she  would  shoAV  him  some 
day  how  gracious  her  manners  could  be  ;  she  was  now  re- 
deeming her  promise.  Rowland,  watching  her,  saw  Mary 
Garland  rise  slowly  in  response  to  her  greeting  and  look 
at  her  with  serious  deep-gazing  eyes.  The  almost  dramatic 
opposition  of  these  two  keenly  interesting  girls  touched 
Rowland  with  a  nameless  apprehension,  and  after  a 
moment  he  preferred  to  turn  away.  In  doing  so  he  noticed 
Roderick.  The  young  sculptor  was  standing  planted  en 
the  train  of  a  lady's  dress,  gazing  across  at  Christina's 
movements  with  undisguised  earnestness.  There  were 
several  more  pieces  of  music  ;  Rowland  sat  in  a  corner 
and    listened   to   them.      When   they   were   over   several 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  2'i9 

people  begr.n  to  take  their  leave,  Mrs.  Hudson  among  tlie 
number.  Kowland  saw  her  come  up  to  Madame  Grandoni, 
clinging  shyly  to  Mary  Garland's  arm.  Mary  had  a 
brilliant  eye  and  a  deep  colour  in  her  cheek.  The  two 
ladies  looked  about  for  Roderick,  but  Roderick  had  his 
back  turned.  He  had  approached  Christina,  who,  with  an 
absent  air,  was  sitting  alone,  where  she  had  taken  her 
place  near  her  innocent  rival,  looking  at  the  guests  pass 
out  of  the  room.  Christina's  eye,  like  Mary's,  was  bright, 
but  her  cheek  was  pale.  Hearing  Roderick's  voice,  she 
looked  up  at  him  sharply ;  then  silently,  with  a  single 
quick  gesture,  she  motioned  him  away.  He  obeyed  her 
and  came  and  joined  his  mother  in  bidding  good  night  to 
Madame  Grandoni.  Christina  in  a  moment  met  Rowland's 
glance  and  immediately  beckoned  him  to  come  to  her.  He 
was  familiar  with  her  spontaneity  of  movement  and  was 
not  particularly  surprised.  She  made  a  place  for  him  on 
the  sofa  beside  her  ;  he  wondered  what  was  coming  now. 
He  was  not  sure  it  was  not  a  mere  fancy,  but  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  had  never  seen  her  look  just  as  she  was  looking 
then.  It  was  a  humble,  touching,  appealing  glance,  which 
threw  into  wonderful  relief  the  nobleness  of  her  beauty. 
"  How  many  more  metamorphoses,"  he  asked  himself,  "  am 
I  to  be  treated  to  before  we  have  done  V 

"  I  want  to  tell  you,"  said  Christina,  "  I  have  taken 
an  immense  fancy  to  Miss  Garland.     Aren't  you  glad  1  " 

"  Delighted  !  "  exclaimed  poor  Rowland, 

"Ah,  you  don't  believe  it,"  she  said  with  soft  dignity. 

"  Is  it  so  hard  to  believe  ?  " 

"  Not  that  people  in  general  should  admire  her,  but  that 
I  should.  But  I  want  to  tell  you  ;  I  want  to  tell  some 
one,  and  I  can't  tell  Miss  Garland  herself.  She  thinks  me 
already  a  horrid  false  creature,  and  if  I  were  to  express 
to  her  frankly  what  I  think  of  her  I  should  simply  disgust 
her.  She  would  be  quite  right  :  she  has  repose,  and  from 
that  point  of  view  I  and  my  doings  must  seem  monstrous. 
Unfortunately  I  haven't  repose.  I  am  trembling  now  ;  if 
I  could  ask  you  to  feel  my  arm,  you  would  see  !  But  I 
want  to  tell  you  that  I  admire  Miss  Garland  more  than 
any  of  the  people  who  call  themselves  her  friends — except 
of  course  you.  Oh,  I  know  that  !  To  begin  with  she  is 
extremely  handsome  and  she  doesn't  know  it." 


250  KODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  She  is  not  generally  thought  handsome,"  said  Row- 
land. 

"  Evidently  !  That's  the  vulgarity  of  the  human  mind. 
Her  head  has  great  character,  great  natural  style.  If  a 
'A'oman  is  not  to  be  a  brilliant  beauty  in  the  regular  way, 
she  will  choose  if  she's  wise  to  look  like  that.  She  will 
not  be  thought  pretty  by  people  in  general,  and  desecrated, 
as  she  passes,  by  the  stare  of  every  vile  wretch  who  chooses 
to  thrust  his  nose  under  her  bonnet ;  but  a  certain  number 
of  intelligent  people  will  iind  it  one  of  the  delightful  things 
of  life  to  look  at  her.  That  lot  is  as  good  as  another  ! 
Then  she  has  a  beautiful  character  !  " 

"  You  found  that  out  soon  !  "  said  Rowland,  smiling. 

"  How  long  did  it  take  you  ?  I  found  it  out  before  I 
ever  spoke  to  her.  I  met  her  the  other  day  in  Saint 
Peter's;  I  knew  it  then.  I  knew  it — do  you  want  to 
know  how  long  I  have  known  it  %  " 

"  Really,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  didn't  mean  to  cross- 
examine  you." 

"Do  you  remember  mamma's  ball  in  December'?  We 
had  some  talk  and  you  then  mentioned  her — not  by  name. 
You  said  but  three  words,  but  I  saw  you  admired  her, 
and  I  knew  that  if  you  admired  her  she  must  have  a 
beautiful  character.     That's  what  you  require  !  " 

"  Upon  my  word,"  cried  Rowland,  "  you  make  three 
words  go  very  far  !  " 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Hudson  has  also  spoken  of  her." 

"  Ah,  that's  better  !  "  said  Rowland. 

"  I  don't  know  ;  he  doesn't  like  her." 

"Did  he  tell  you  so?"  The  question  left  Rowland's 
lips  before  he  could  stay  it,  which  he  would  have  done 
on  a  moment's  reflection. 

Christina  looked  at  him  intently.  "  No  !  "  she  said  at 
last.  "  That  would  have  been  dishonourable,  wouldn't  it  % 
But  I  know  it  from  my  knowledge  of  him.  He  doesn't  like 
perfection ;  he  is  not  bent  upon  being  safe,  in  his  likings ; 
he  is  willing  to  risk  something  !  Poor  fellow,  he  risks  too 
much  !  " 

Rowland  was  silent ;  he  did  not  care  for  the  thrust ;  but 
he  was  profoundly  mystified.  Christina  beckoned  to  her 
poodle,  and  the  dog  marched  stiffly  across  to  her.  She 
gave  a  loving  twist  to  his  rose-coloured  top-knot  and  bade 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  251 

him  go  and  fetch  her  burnous.  He  obeyed,  gathered  it 
up  in  his  teeth,  and  returned  with  great  solemnity,  dragging 
it  along  the  ^oor. 

"I  do  her  justice.  I  do  her  full  justice,"  she  went  on 
with  soft  earnestness.  "  I  like  to  say  that,  I  like  to  be 
able  to  say  it.  She  is  full  of  intelligence  and  courage  and 
devotion.  She  doesn't  do  me  a  grain  of  justice;  but  that 
is  jno  harm.  There  is  something  so  fine  in  the  aversions  of ' 
a  good  woman  ! ' ' 

"  If  you  would  give  Miss  Garland  a  chance,"  said  Eow- 
land,  "  I  am  sure  she  would  be  glad  to  be  your  friend." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  a  chance?  She  has  only  to 
take  it.  I  told  her  I  liked  her  immensely,  and  she  frowned 
as  if  I  had  said  something  disgusting.  She  looks  very 
handsome  when  she  frowns."  Christina  rose  with  these 
words  and  began  to  gather  her  mantle  about  her.  "  I 
don  t  often  like  women,"  she  went  on.  "  In  fact  I  generally 
detest  them.  But  I  should  like  to  know  that  one  well. 
I  should  like  to  have  a  friendship  with  her ;  I  have  never 
had  one  ;  they  must  be  very  delightful.  But  I  sha'n't 
have  one  now — not  if  she  can  help  it !  Ask  her  what 
she  thinks  of  me ;  see  what  she  will  say.  I  don't  want 
to  know ;  keep  it  to  yourself.  It's  too  sad.  So  we  go 
through  life.  It's  fatality — that's  what  they  call  it,  isn't 
it?  VVe  please  the  people  we  don't  care  for,  we  displease^ 
those  we  do  !  But  I  appreciate  her,  I  do  her  justice  ;  that's 
the.  most  important  thing.  It's  because  I  have  imagination. 
She  has  none.  Never  mind  ;  it's  her  only  fault.  I  do 
her  justice  ;  I  understand  very  well."  She  kept  softly 
murmuring  and  looking  about  for  Madame  Grandoni.  She 
saw  the  good  lady  near  the  door,  and  put  out  her  hand  to 
Rowland  for  good  night.  She  held  his  hand  an  instant, 
fixing  him  with  her  eyes,  the  living  splendour  of  which  at 
this  moment  was  something  transcendent.  "  Yes,  I  do 
her  justice,"  she  repeated.  "And  you  do  her  more;  you 
would  lay  down  your  life  for  her."  With  this  she  turned 
away,  and  before  he  could  answer  she  left  him.  She  went 
to  Madame  Grandoni,  grasped  her  two  hands  and  held  out 
her  forehead  to  be  kissed.     The  next  moment  she  was  gone. 

"  That  was  a  happy  accident !  "  said  Madame  Grandoni. 
"  She  never  looked  so  beautiful,  and  she  made  my  little 
party  brilliant." 


252  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  Beantiful  verily  !  "  Rowland  answered.     "  But  it  was 
no  accident." 

"  What  was  it,  then  1  " 

"  It  was  a  plan.     She  wished  to  see  Mary  Garland.     Slie 
knew  she  was  to  be  here." 

-'How  so?" 

"  By  Roderick  evidently." 
r**  And  why  did  she  wish  to  see  Mary  Garland  ?  " 

"  Heaven  knows  !     I  give  it  np  !  " 

"  Ah,  the  wicked  girl  !  "  murniiired  Madame  Grandoni. 

"  No,"  said  Rowland ;  "  don't  say  ttiat  now.     She's  too 
beautiful." 

"  Oh,  you  men — the  best  of  you  !  " 

"  Well,  then,"  cried  Rowland,  "  she's  too  good  !  '^ 


XX. 


The  opportunity  presenting  itself  the  next  day,  he  failed 
not,  as  you  may  imagine,  to  ask  Mary  Garland  what  she 
thought  of  Christina.  It  was  a  Saturday  afternoon,  the 
time  at  which  the  beautiful  marbles  of  the  Yilla  Borghese 
are  thrown  open  to  the  public.  Mary  had  told  him  that 
Roderick  had  promised  to  take  her  to  see  them  with  his 
mother,  and  he  joined  the  party  in  the  splendid  Casino. 
The  warm  weather  had  left  so  few  strangers  in  Rome  that 
they  had  the  place  almost  to  themselves.  Mrs.  Hudson 
had  confessed  to  an  invincible  fear  of  treading,  even  with 
the  help  of  her  son's  arm,  the  polished  marble  floors,  and 
was  sitting  patiently  on  a  stool,  with  folded  hands,  looking 
shyly  here  and  there  at  the  undraped  paganism  around 
her.  Roderick  had  sauntered  off  alone,  with  an  irritated 
brow  which  seemed  to  betray  the  conflict  between  the 
instinct  of  observation  and  the  perplexities  of  circumstance. 
His  cousin  was  wandering  in  another  direction,  and  though 
she  was  consulting  her  catalogue  Rowland  fancied  it  was 
from  habit ;  she  too  was  preoccupied.  He  joined  her,  and 
she    presentlv   sat   down  on    a   divan  rather  wearily  and 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  ^53 

closed  her  Murray.  Then  he  asked  her  abruptly  Low 
Christina  had  pleased  her. 

She  started  the  least  bit  at  the  question,  and  he  felt 
that  she  had  been  thinking  of  Christina. 

"  I  don't  like  her  !  "  she  said  dryly. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  her  1 " 

"  I  think  she's  false."  This  was  said  without  petulance 
or  bitterness,  but  with  a  very  positive  air. 

"  But  she  wished  to  please  you ;  she  tried,"  Rowland 
rejoined  in  a  moment. 

"  I  think  not.     She  wished  to  please  herself  !  " 

Rowland  felt  himself  at  liberty  to  say  no  more.  No 
allusion  to  Christina  had  passed  between  them  since  the 
day  they  met  her  at  Saint  Peter's,  but  he  knew  that 
she  knew  by  that  infallible  sixth  sense  of  a  woman  who 
loves  that  this  strange  and  beautiful  girl  had  the  power  to 
injure  her.  To  what  extent  she  had  the  will  INIary  was 
uncertain ;  but  last  night's  interview  apparently  had  not 
reassured  her.  It  was  under  these  circumstances  equally 
unbecoming  for  Rowland  either  to  depreciate  or  to  defend 
Christina,  and  he  had  to  content  himself  with  simply 
having  verified  the  girl's  own  assurance  that  she  had 
made  a  bad  impression.  He  tried  to  talk  of  indifferent 
matters — about  the  statues  and  the  frescoes ;  but  to-day 
plainly  aesthetic  curiosity,  on  his  companion's  part,  had 
folded  its  wings.  Curiosity  of  another  sort  had  taken 
its  place.  Mary  was  longing,  he  was  sure,  to  question  him 
about  Christina ;  but  she  found  a  dozen  reasons  for  hesita- 
ting. Her  questions  would  imply  that  Roderick  had  not 
treated  her  with  confidence  ;  for  information  on  this  point 
should  properly  have  come  from  himself.  They  would 
imply  that  she  was  jealous,  and  to  betray  her  jealousy  was 
intolerable  to  her  pride.  For  somo  minutes,  as  she  sat 
scratching  the  brilliant  pavement  with  the  point  of  her 
umbrella,  it  was  to  be  supposed  that  her  pride  and  her 
anxiety  held  an  earnest  debate.     At  last  anxiety  won. 

"  A  propos  of  Miss  Light,"  she  asked,  "  do  you  know  her 
well  % " 

"  I  can  hardly  say  that.  But  I  have  seen  her  re- 
peatedly." 

"  Do  you  like  her  ?  " 

"  Yes  and  no.     I  think  I  am  sorry  for  her." 


254  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Mary  had  spoken  with  her  eyes  on  the  pavement.  At 
this  she  looked  up.      *'  Sorry  for  her  ?     Why  I  " 

"  Well — she  is  unhappy." 

"  What  are  her  miseries  1  " 

"  Well — she  has  a  horrible  mother  and  she  has  had  a 
most  injurious  education." 

For  a  moment  Mary  was  silent.  Then,  "  Isn't  she  very 
beautiful  1  "  she  asked. 

"  Don't  you  think  so  1 " 

"  That's  measured  by  what  men  think  I  She  is  extremely 
clever  too." 

"  Oh,  yes — speaking  as  men  think  !  " 

"  She  has  beautiful  dresses." 

"  Any  number  of  them." 

"  And  beautiful  manners." 

"  Yes — sometimes." 

"  And  plenty  of  money." 

"  Money  enough  apparently." 

"  And  she  receives  groat  admiration." 

"  Very  true." 

"And  she  is  to  marry  a  prince." 

"  So  they  say." 

Mary  rose  and  turned  to  rejoin  her  companions,  comment- 
ing these  admissions  with  a  pregnant  silence.  "  Poor  Miss 
Light !  "  she  said  at  last  simply.  And  in  this  it  seemed  to 
Kowland  there  was  a  touch  of  serious  mockery. 

Very  late  on  the  following  evoning  his  servant  brought 
him  the  card  of  a  visitor.  He  was  surprised  at  a  visit 
at  such  an  hour,  but  it  may  be  said  that  when  he  read 
the  inscription — Cavaliere  Giuseppe  Giacosa — his  surprise 
abated.  He  had  had  an  unformulated  conviction  that 
there  was  to  be  a  sequel  to  the  apparition  at  INIadame 
Grandoni's ;  the  Cavaliere  had  come  to  usher  it  in. 

He  had  come  evidently  on  a  portentous  errand.  He 
was  as  pale  as  ashes  and  prodigiously  serious  ;  his  little  cold 
black  eye  had  grown  ardent,  and  he  had  left  his  insinuating 
smile  at  home.  He  saluted  Rowland  however  with  his 
usual  expressiveness. 

*'  You  have  more  than  once  done  me  the  honour  to  invite 
me  to  call  upon  you,"  he  said.  "  I  am  ashamed  of  my 
long  delay  and  I  can  only  say  to  you  frankly  that  my  time 
this  winter  has  not  been  my  own."     Rowland  assented, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  255 

ungrudgingly,  fumbled  for  the  Italian  correlative  of  the 
adage  "  Better  late  than  never,"  begged  him  to  be  seated, 
and  offered  him  a  cigar.  The  Cavaliere  sniffed  impercep- 
tibly the  fragrant  weed,  and  then  declared  that  if  his  kind 
host  would  allow  him  he  would  reserve  it  for  consumption 
at  another  time.  He  apparently  desired  to  intimate  that 
the  solemnity  of  his  errand  left  him  no  breath  for  idle 
smoke-puffings.  "I  must  confess,"  he  observed,  "that 
even  now  I  come  on  business  not  of  my  own — or  my  own 
at  least  only  in  a  secondary  sense.  I  have  been  dispatched 
as  an  ambassador — an  envoy  extraordinary  I  may  say — by 
my  dear  friend  Mrs.  Light." 

*'  If  I  can  in  any  way  be  of  service  to  Mrs.  Light,  I 
shall  be  happy,"  Rowland  said. 

"  Well  then,  dear  sir,  Casa  Light  is  in  commotion.  The 
signora  is  in  trouble — in  terrible  trouble."  For  a  moment 
Rowland  expected  to  hear  that  the  signora's  trouble  was  of 
a  nature  that  a  loan  of  five  thousand  francs  would  assuage. 
But  the  Cavaliere  continued — "  Miss  Light  has  committed 
a  great  crime  ;  she  has  plunged  a  dagger  into  the  heart  of 
her  mother." 

"  A  dagger  !  "  cried  Rowland. 

The  Cavaliere  patted  the  air  an  instant  with  his  finger- 
tips. "  I  speak  figuratively.  She  has  broken  off  her 
marriage." 

"  Broken  it  off  1  " 

"  Short  !  She  has  turned  the  Prince  from  the  door." 
And  the  Cavaliere,  when  he  had  made  this  announcement, 
folded  his  arms  and  bent  upon  Rowland  his  intense  inscrut- 
able gaze.  It  seemed  to  Rowland  that  he  detected  in  the 
polished  depths  of  it  a  fantastic  gleam  of  irony  or  of 
triumph  ;  but  superficially  at  least  Giacosa  did  nothing  to 
discredit  his  character  as  a  sympathetic  representative  of 
Mrs.  Light's  affliction. 

Ptowland  heard  his  news  with  a  kind  of  fierce  disgust ; 
it  seemed  the  sinister  counterpart  of  Christina's  preter- 
natural mildness  at  Madame  Grandoni's  assembly.  She 
had  been  too  plausible  to  be  honest.  Without  being  able 
to  trace  the  connection,  he  yet  instinctively  associated  her 
present  rebellion  with  her  meeting  with  Mary  Garland. 
If  she  had  not  seen  Mary,  she  would  have  let  things  stand. 
It  was  monstrous  to  suppose  that  she  could  have  sacrificed 


25C  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

so  brilliant  a  fortune  to  a  mere  movement  of  jealousy,  to  a 
refined  impulse  of  feminine  devilry,  to  a  desire  to  frighten 
poor  Mary  from  her  security  by  again  appearing  in  the 
field.  Yet  Rowland  remembered  his  first  impression  of 
her ;  she  was  *'  dangerous,"  and  she  had  measured  in  each 
direction  the  perturbing  effect  of  her  rupture.  She  was 
smiling  her  sweetest  smile  at  it !  For  half  an  hour  Kow- 
land  simply  detested  her — he  longed  to  denounce  her  to 
her  face.  Of  course,  all  he  could  say  to  Giacosa  was  that 
he  was  extremely  sorry.  "  But  I  am  not  surprised,"  he 
added. 

"  You  are  not  surprised  1 " 

"  With  Miss  Light  everything  is  possible.  Isn't  that 
true  ?  " 

Another  ripple  seemed  to  play  for  an  instant  in  the 
current  of  the  old  man's  irony,  but  he  made  no  answer. 
*'  It  was  a  magnificent  marriage,"  he  said  at  last.  "  I  do 
not  respect  many  people,  but  I  respect  Prince  Casamas- 
sima." 

"I  should  judge  him  indeed  to  be  a  very  honourable 
young  man,"  said  Rowland. 

"  Eh,  young  as  he  is,  he  is  made  of  the  old  stuff.  And 
now  perhaps  he's  blowing  his  brains  out.  He  is  the  last 
of  his  house ;  it's  a  great  house.  But  Miss  Light  will 
have  put  an  end  to  it !  " 

"  Is  that  the  view  she  takes  of  it  1 " 

This  time  unmistakably  the  Cavaliore  smiled,  but  still 
in  that  very  out-of-the-way  place.  "  You  have  observed 
Miss  Light  with  attention,"  he  said,  "  and  this  brings  me 
to  my  errand.  Mrs.  Light  has  a  high  opinion  of  your 
wdsdom,  of  your  kindness,  and  she  has  reason  to  believe 
you  have  great  influence  with  her  daughter." 

"  I — with  her  daughter  ?     Kot  a  grain  !  " 

"  That  is  possibly  your  modesty.  Mrs.  Light  believes 
that  something  may  yet  be  done  and  that  Christina  will 
listen  to  you.  She  begs  you  to  come  and  see  her  before 
it  is  too  late." 

"  But  all  this,  my  dear  Cavaliere,  is  none  of  my  business," 
Rowland  objected.  "  I  can't  possibly  in  such  a  matter  take 
the  responsibility  of  advising  Miss  Light." 

The  Cavaliere  fixed  his  eyes  for  a  moment  on  the  fioor, 
m     brief,     but    intense    retlection.       Then     looking     up, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  257 

"Unfortunately,"    he    said,    "she    has    no  man    near   her 
whom  she  respects  ;  she  has  no  father  !  " 

"  And  such  a  finished  fool  of  a  mother  !  "  Rowland  gave 
himself  the  satisfaction  of  exclaiming. 

The  Cavaliere  was  so  pale  that  he  could  not  easily  have 
turned  paler;  yet  it  seemed  for  a  moment  that  his  dead 
complexion  blanched.  "  Eh,  signore,  such  as  she  is,  the 
mother  appeals  to  you.  A  very  handsome  woman — dis- 
hevelled, in  tears,  in  despair,  in  dishabille  !  "  Rowland 
reflected  a  moment,  not  on  the  attractions  of  Mrs.  Light 
under  the  circumstances  indicated  by  the  Cavaliere,  but 
on  the  satisfaction  he  should  take  in  accusing  Christina  to 
her  face  of  having  struck  a  cruel  blow. 

"  I  must  add,"  said  the  Cavaliere,  "  that  Mrs.  Light 
desires  also  to  speak  to  you  on  the  subject  of  Mr. 
Hudson." 

"  She  considers  Mr.  Hudson  connected  with  this  step  of 
her  daughter's  ?  " 

"  Intimately.     He  must  be  got  out  of  Rome." 

"  Mrs.  Light  then  must  get  an  order  from  the  Pope  to 
remove  him.     It's  not  in  my  power," 

The  Cavaliere  assented  deferentially.  "  Mrs.  Light  is 
equally  helpless.  She  would  leave  Rome  to-morrow,  but 
Christina  would  not  budge.  An  order  from  the  Pope  would 
do  nothing.     A  bull  in  council  would  do  nothing." 

"  She  is  a  remarkable  young  lady !  "  said  Rowland,  with 
bitterness. 

But  the  Cavaliere  rose  and  responded  coldly,  "  She  has 
a  great  spirit.'^  And  it  seemed  to  Rowland  that  her  great 
spirit,  for  mysterious  reasons,  gave  him  more  pleasure  than 
the  distressing  use  she  made  of  it  gave  him  pain.  He  was 
on  the  point  of  charging  him  with  his  inconsistency,  when 
Giacof;a  went  on — "  But  if  the  marriage  can  be  saved,  it 
must  be  saved.  It's  a  beautiful  marriage.  It  will  be 
saved." 

"  Notwithstanding  Miss  Light's  great  spirit  to  the  con- 
trary?" 

"  Miss  Light,  notwithstanding  her  great  spirit,  will  call 
Prince  Casamassima  back." 

"  Heaven  grant  it  !  "  said  Rowland. 
I   don't   know,"  said   the    Cavaliere,   solemnly,   "  that 
Heaven  will  have  much  to  do  with  it." 


258  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Rowland  gave  him  a  questioning  look,  but  he  laid  his 
finger  on  his  lips.  And  with  Rowland's  promise  to  present 
himself  on  the  morrow  at  Casa  Light,  he  shortly  afterwards 
departed.  He  left  Rowland  revolving  many  things : 
Christina's  magnanimity,  Christina's  perversity,  Roderick's 
contingent  fortune,  Mary  Garland's  certain  trouble,  and 
the  Cavaliere's  own  tine  ambiguities. 

Rowland's  promise  to  the  Cavaliere  obliged  him  to  dis- 
engage himself  from  an  excursion  which  he  had  arranged 
with  the  two  ladies  from  Northampton.  Before  going  to 
Casa  Light  he  repaired  in  person  to  Mrs.  Hudson's  hotol 
to  make  his  excuses. 

He  found  Roderick's  mother  sitting  with  tearful  eyes, 
staring  at  an  open  note  that  lay  in  her  lap.  At  the  window 
sat  Mary  Garland,  who  turned  upon  him  as  he  came  in,  a 
gaze  both  anxious  and  familiar.  Mrs.  Hudson  quickly  rose 
and  came  to  him  holding  out  the  note. 

"  In  pity's  name  what  is  the  matter  with  my  boy  1  If 
he  is  ill,  I  entreat  you  to  take  me  to  him  !  " 

"  He  is  not  ill,  to  my  knowledge,"  said  Rowland.  "  What 
have  you  there  1 " 

"  A  note — a  dreadful  note.  He  tells  us  we  are  not  to 
see  him  for  a  week.  If  I  could  only  go  to  his  room  1  But 
I  am  afraid,  I  am  afraid  !  " 

"  I  imagine  there  is  no  need  of  going  to  his  room.  What 
is  the  occasion,  may  I  ask,  of  his  note  1 " 

"  He  was  to  have  gone  with  us  on  this  drive  to — what 
is  the  place  1 — to  Cervara.  You  know  it  was  arranged 
yesterday  morning.  In  the  evening  he  was  to  have  dined 
with  us.  But  he  never  came,  and  this  morning  arrives  this 
awful  thing.  Oh,  dear,  I'm  so  excited  !  Would  you  mind 
reading  it  1  " 

Rowland  took  the  note  and  glanced  at  its  half-dozen 
lines.  "  I  cannot  go  to  Cervara,"  they  ran ;  "  I  have  some- 
thing else  to  do.  This  will  occupy  me  perhaps  a  week, 
and  you  will  not  see  me.  Don't  miss  me — learn  not  to 
miss  me.     H.  H." 

"Why,  it  means,"  Rowland  explained,  "that  he  has 
taken  up  a  piece  of  work,  and  that  it  is  all-absorbing. 
That's  very  good  news."  This  explanation  was  not  sin- 
cere ;  but  he  had  not  the  courage  not  to  offer  it  as  a  stop- 
gap.   But  he  found  he  needed  all  his  courage  to  support  it, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  259 

for  Mary  had  left  her  place  and  approached  him,  formidably 
unsatisfied. 

"  He  does  not  work  in  the  evening,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson. 
"  Can't  he  come  for  five  minutes  1  Why  does  he  write 
such  a  cruel  cold  note  to  his  poor  mother — to  poor  Mary '{ 
What  have  we  done  that  he  acts  so  strangely  1  It's  this 
wicked,  infectious,  heathenish  place  !  "  And  the  poor  lady's 
suppressed  mistrust  of  the  Eternal  City  broke  out  passion- 
ately. "  Oh,  dear  Mr.  Mallet,"  she  went  on,  "  I  am  sure 
he  has  the  fever,  and  he's  already  delirious  !  " 

"  I  am  very  sure  it's  not  that,"  said  Mary  softly. 

She  was  still  looking  at  Rowland  ;  his  eyes  met  hers 
and  his  own  glance  wandered  away.  This  made  him  angry, 
and  to  carry  off  his  confusion  he  pretended  to  be  looking 
meditatively  at  the  floor.  After  all,  what  had  he  to  be 
ashamed  of?  For  a  moment  he  was  on  the  point  of 
making  a  clean  breast  of  it,  of  crying  out,  "  Good  ladies, 
I  abdicate;  I  can't  help  you!"  But  he  checked  him- 
self ;  he  felt  so  impatient  to  have  his  three  words  with 
Christina.     He  grasped  his  hat. 

"  I  will  see  what  it  is  !  "  he  cried.  And  then  he  was 
glad  he  had  not  abdicated,  for  as  he  turned  away  he 
glanced  again  at  Mary,  and  saw  that,  though  her  eyes  were 
full  of  trouble,  they  were  not  hard  and  accusing,  but 
charged  with  appealing  friendship. 

He  went  straight  to  Roderick's  apartment,  deeming  this, 
at  an  early  hour,  the  safest  place  to  seek  him.  He  found 
him  in  his  sitting-room,  which  had  been  closely  darkened 
to  keep  out  the  heat.  The  carpets  and  rugs  had  been 
removed,  the  floor  of  speckled  concrete  was  bare,  and 
lightly  sprinkled  with  water.  Here  and  there,  over  it,  cer- 
tain strongly  odorous  flowers  had  been  scattered.  Roderick 
was  lying  C)n  his  divan  in  a  white  dressing-gown,  staring 
up  at  the  frescoed  ceiling.  The  room  was  deliciously  cool, 
and  filled  with  the  moist  sweet  fragrance  of  the  circum- 
jacent roses  and  violets.  All  this  seemed  highly  fantastic, 
and  yet  Rowland  hardly  felt  surprised. 

"Your  mother  was  greatly  alarmed  at  your  note,"  he 
said,  "and  I  came  to  satisfy  myself  that,  as  I  believed, 
you  are  not  ill." 

Roderick  lay  motionless  except  that  he  slightly  turned 
his  head  towards  his  friend.    He  was  smelling  a  large  white 

E  2 


260  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

rose,  which  he  continued  to  present  to  his  novse.  In  the 
darkness  of  the  room  he  looked  exceedingly  pale,  but  his 
handsome  eyes  had  an  extraordinary  brilliancy.  He  let 
them  rest  for  some  time  on  Kowland,  lying  there  like  a 
lihuddist  in  an  intellectual  swoon,  whose  perception 
should  be  slowly  ebbing  back  to  temporal  matters.  "  Oh, 
I  am  not  ill,"  he  said  at  last.   "  I  have  never  been  better." 

"  Your  note  nevertheless  and  your  absence  have  very 
naturally  alarmed  your  mother.  1  advise  you  to  go  to 
her  directly  and  reassure  her." 

"  Go  to  her  1  Going  to  her  would  be  worse  than  staying 
away.  Staying  away  at  present  is  a  kindness."  And  he  in- 
haled deeply  his  huge  rose,  looking  up  over  it  at  Kowland. 
"  My  presence  in  fact  would  be  indecent." 

"Indecent?     Pray  explain." 

"  Why,  you  see,  as  regards  Mary  Garland.  I  am  divinely 
happy  !  Doesn't  it  strike  you  'i  You  ought  to  agree  with 
me.  You  wish  me  to  spare  her  feelings ;  I  spare  them  by 
staying  away.     Last  night  I  heard  something " 

"  I  heard  it  too,"  said  Rowland  with  brevity.  "  And 
it's  in  honour  of  this  piece  of  news  that  you  have  taken 
to  your  bed  in  this  fashion  1  " 

"  Extremes  meet !      I  can't  get  up  for  joy." 

"  May  I  inquire  how  you  heard  your  joyous  news  1 — 
from  Miss  Light  herself  1  " 

"  By  no  means.  It  was  brought  me  by  her  maid,  who 
is  in  my  service  as  well." 

"  Casamassima's  loss  then  is  to  a  certaipty  your  own 
gain?"  \ 

"  I  don't  talk  about  certainties.  I  don't\  want  to  be 
arrogant,  I  don't  want  to  offend  the  immortal'gods.  I  am 
keeping  very  quiet,  but  I  can't  help  being  happy.  I  shall 
wait  a  while  ;  I  shall  bide  my  time." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"  And  then  that  incomparable  girl  will  confess  to  me 
that  when  she  threw  overboard  her  prince  she  remembered 
that  I  adore  her  !  " 

"  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you,"  was  in  the  course  of  a  moment 
Rowland's  response  to  this  speech,  "  that  I  ani  now  on 
my  way  to  Mrs.  Light's." 

"  I  congratulate  you,  I  envy  you  !  "  Roderick  murmured 
imperturbably. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  261 

"Mrs.  Light  has  sent  for  me  to  remonstrate  with  her 
daughter,  with  whom  she  has  taken  it  into  her  head  that 
I  have  an  influence.  I  don't  know  to  what  extent  I  shall 
remonstrate,  but  I  give  you  notice  1  shall  not  speak  in 
your  interest." 

Roderick  looked  at  him  for  a  moment  with  a  lazy 
radiance  in  his  eyes.     "  Pray  don't !  "  he  simply  answered. 

"  You  deserve  I  should  tell  her  you  are  a  very  shabby 
fellow." 

"  My  dear  Rowland,  the  comfort  with  you  is  that  I 
can  trust  you.  You  are  incapable  of  doing  anything 
disloyal." 

"  You  mean  to  lie  here  then,  smelling  your  roses  and 
nursing  your  visions  and  leaving  your  mother  and  Miss 
Garland  to  eat  their  hearts  out  1 " 

"  Can  I  go  and  flaunt  my  felicity  in  their  faces  1  Wait 
till  I  get  used  to  it  a  trifle.  I  have  done  them  a  villainous 
wrong,  but  I  can  at  least  forbear  to  add  insult  to  injury. 
I  may  be  an  arrant  fool,  but  for  the  moment  I  have  taken 
it  into  my  head  to  be  prodigiously  pleased.  I  shouldn't 
be  able  to  conceal  it ;  my  pleasure  would  offend  them ;  so 
I  lock  myself  up  as  a  dangerous  character." 

"  Well,  I  can  only  hope  that  your  pleasure  may  never 
grow  less  or  your  danger  greater  !  " 

Roderick  closed  his  eyes  again  and  sniffed  at  his  rose. 
"  God's  will  be  done  !  " 

On  this  Rowland  left  him  and  repaired  directly  to 
Mrs.  Light's.  This  afflicted  lady  hurried  forward  to  meet 
him.  Since  the  Cavaliere's  visit  to  Rowland  she  had  taken 
a  reef,  as  the  saying  is,  in  her  distress,  but  she  was  evidently 
still  in  high  agitation,  and  she  clutched  Rowland  by  his 
two  hands  as  if  in  the  shipwreck  of  her  hopes  he  were 
her  single  floating  spar.  Rowland  greatly  pitied  her,  for 
there  is  something  respectable  in  passionate  grief,  even  in 
a  very  bad  cause  ;  and  as  pity  is  akin  to  love  he  felt  rather 
more  tolerant  of  her  fantastic  pretensions  than  he  had 
done  hitherto. 

"  Speak  to  her,  plead  with  her,  command  her  !  "  she 
cried,  pressing  and  shaking  his  hands.  "  She'll  not  heed 
us,  no  more  than  if  we  were  a  pair  of  running  fountains. 
Perhaps  she  will  listen  to  you  ;  she  always  liked  you." 

"  She  always  disliked  me,"  said  Rowland.     "  But  that 


262  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

doesn't  matter  now.  I  have  come  here  simply  because 
you  sent  for  me — not  because  I  can  help  you.  I  can't 
advise  your  daughter." 

"  Oh  cruel,  deadly  man  !  You  must  advise  her ;  you 
sha'n't  leave  this  house  till  you  have  advised  her  !  "  the  poor 
woman  passionately  retorted.  "  Look  at  me  in  my  misery 
and  refuse  to  help  me  !  You  needn't  be  afraid,  I  know  I'm 
a  fright,  I  haven't  an  idea  what  I  have  on.  If  this  goes 
on  she  and  I  may  both  as  well  turn  scarecrows.  If  ever 
a  woman  was  desperate,  frantic,  heart-broken,  such  a 
woman  speaks  to  you  now  !  I  can't  begin  to  tell  you.  To_ 
have  nourished  a  serpent,  sir,  all  these  years  !  to  have 
lavished  one's  self  upon  a  viper  that  turns  and  stings  her 
own  poor  mother  !  To  have  toiled  and  prayed,  to  have  pushed 
and  struggled,  to  have  eaten  the  bread  of  bitterness  and 
gone  through  fire  and  water— and  at  the  end  of  all  things 
to  find  myvself  at  this  pass  !  It  can't  be,  it's  too  cruel, 
such  things  don't  happen,  the  Lord  don't  allow  it.  I'm 
a  religious  woman,  sir,  and  the  Lord  knows  all  about  me. 
With  His  own  hand  He  had  given  me  his  reward  !  I  would 
have  lain  down  in  the  dust  and  let  her  walk  over  me  ;  T 
would  have  given  her  the  eyes  out  of  my  head  if  she  had 
taken  a  fancy  to  them.  No,  she's  a  cruel,  wicked,  heartless, 
unnatural  girl  !  I  speak  to  you,  Mr.  Mallet,  in  my  dire 
distress,  as  to  my  only  friend.  There  isn't  a  creature  here 
that  I  can  look  to — not  one  of  them  all  that  I  have  faith 
in.  But  I  always  admired  you.  I  said  to  Christina  the 
first  time  I  saw  you  that  you  were  a  perfect  gentleman, 
and  very  different  from  some  !  Come,  don't  disappoint 
me  now  !  I  feel  so  terribly  alone,  you  see ;  I  feel  what  a 
nasty  hard  heartless  world  it  is  that  has  come  and  devoured 
my  dinners  and  danced  to  my  fiddles,  and  yet  that  hasn't 
a  word  to  throw  to  me  in  my  agony !  Oh,  the  money  alone 
that  I  have  put  into  this  thing  would  melt  the  heart  of  a 
Turk !  " 

During  this  frenzied  outbreak  Rowland  had  had  time 
to  look  round  the  room  and  to  see  the  Cavaliere  sitting  in 
a  corner,  like  a  major-domo  on  tne  divan  of  an  ante- 
chamber, pale,  rigid,  inscrutable. 

"I  have  it  at  heart  to  tell  you,"  Rowland  said,  "that 
if  you  consider  my  friend  Hudson — " 

Mrs.  Light  gave  a  toss  of  her  head  and  hands.     "  Oh, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  263 

it's  not  that  !  She  told  me  last  night  to  bother  her  no 
longer  with  Hudson.  Hudson  forsooth  1  She  didn't  care 
a  button  for  Hudson.  I  almost  wish  she  did  ;  then  perhaps 
one  might  understand  it.  But  she  doesn't  care  for  any- 
thing in  the  wide  world  except  to  do  her  own  hard  wicked 
will  and  to  crush  me  and  shame  me  with  her  cruelty." 

"  Ah,  then,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  am  as  much  at  sea  as 
you,  and  my  presence  here  is  an  impertinence,  I  should 
like  to  say  three  words  to  Miss  Light  on  my  own  account. 
But  I  must  wholly  decline  to  talk  to  her  about  Prince 
Casamassima.     This  is  simply  impossible." 

Mrs.  Light  burst  into  angry  tears.  "  Because  the  poor 
boy  is  a  prince,  eh  1  because  he's  of  a  great  family  and  has 
an' income  of  millions,  eh  ^  That's  why  you  grudge  him 
and  hate  him.  I  knew  there  were  vulgar  people  of  that 
way  of  feeling,  but  I  didn't  expect  it  of  you.  Make  an 
effort,  Mr.  Mallet ;  rise  to  the  occasion ;  forgive  the  poor 
fellow  his  advantages.  Be  just,  be  reasonable  !  It's  not 
his  fault,  and  it's  not  mine.  He's  the  best,  the  kindest 
young  man  in  the  world,  and  the  most  correct  and  moral 
and  virtuous  !  If  he  were  standing  here  in  rags  I  would 
say  it  all  the  same.  The  man  first — the  money  afterwards  : 
that  was  always  my  motto — ask  the  Cavaliere.  What  do 
you  take  me  for  1  Do  you  suppose  I  would  give  Christina 
to  a  vicious  person  ?  do  you  suppose  I  would  sacrifice  my 
precious  child,  little  comfort- as  I  have  in  her,  to  a  man 
against  whose  character  a  syllable'  could  be  breathed  1 
Casamassima  is  only  too  good,  he's  a  saint  of  saints,  he's 
stupidly  good  !  There  isn't  such  another  in  the  length 
and  breadth  of  Europe.  What  he  has  been  through  m 
this  house  not  a  common  peasant  would  endure.  Christina 
has  treated  him  as  you  wouldn't  treat  a  dogo  He  has 
been  insulted,  outraged,  persecuted  !  He  has  been  driven 
hither  and  thither  till  he  didn't  know  where  he  was.  He 
has  stood  there  where  you  stand — there,  with  his  name 
and  his  millions  and  his  devotion — as  white  as  your  hand- 
kerchief, with  hot  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  me  ready  to  go 
down  on  my  knees  to  him  and  say,  '  My  own  sweet  Prince, 
I  could  kiss  the  ground  you  tread  on,  but  it  isn't  decent 
that  I  should  allow  you  to  enter  my  house  and  expose 
yourself  to  these  horrors  again.'  And  he  would  come 
back,  and  he  would  come  back,  and  go  through  it  all  again. 


264  RODERICK   HUDSON. 

and  take  all  that  was  given  him,  and  only  want  the  girl 
the  more  1  I  was  his  confidant  ;  I  know  everything.  He 
used  to  beg  my  own  forgiveness  for  Christina.  What  do 
you  say  to  that  1  1  seized  him  once  and  kissed  him,  I  did  I 
To  find  that  and  to  find  all  the  rest  with  it,  and  to  believe 
that  it  was  a  gift  straight  from  the  pitying  angels  of 
Heaven,  and  then  to  see  it  dashed  away  before  your  eyes 
and  to  stand  here  helpless — oh,  it's  a  fate  I  hope  you  may 
ever  be  spared  !  " 

"  It  would  seem  then  that  in  the  interest  of  Prince 
Casamassima  himself  I  ought  to  refuse  to  interfere,"  said 
Rowland, 

Mrs.  Light  looked  at  him  hard,  slowly  drying  her  eyes. 
The  intensity  of  her  grief  and  anger  gave  her  a  kind  of 
majesty,  and  Rowland  for  the  moment  felt  ashamed  of  the 
somewhat  grim  humour  of  his  observation. 

*'  Very  good,  sir,"  she  said.  "  I  am  sorry  your  heart  is 
not  so  tender  as  your  conscience.  My  compliments  to 
your  conscience  1  It  must  give  you  great  happiness. 
Heaven  help  me  !  Since  you  fail  us  we  are  indeed  driven 
to  the  wall.  But  I  have  fought  my  own  battles  before 
and  I  have  never  lost  courage  ;  and  I  don't  see  why  I 
should  break  down  now.     Cavaliere,  come  here  ! ' ' 

Giacosa  rose  at  her  summons  and  advanced  with  his 
usual  deferential  alacrity.  He  shook  hands  with  Rowland 
in  silence. 

"  Mr.  Mallet  refuses  to  say  a  word,"  Mrs.  Light  went 
on.  "  Time  presses,  every  moment  is  precious.  Heaven 
knows  what  that  poor  boy  may  be  doing.  If  at  this 
moment  a  clever  woman  should  get  hold  of  him  she 
might  be  as  ugly  as  she  could  !  It's  horrible  to  think 
of  it." 

The  Cavaliere  fixed  his  eyes  on  Rowland,  and  his  look, 
which  the  night  before  had  been  singular,  was  now  most 
extraordinary  in  its  mixture  of  fine  anxiety — an  anxiety 
which  seemed  to  plead  against  the  young  man's  reluctance 
— and  mocking  exultation. 

Suddenly  and  vaguely  Rowland  felt  the  presence  of  a 
new  element  in  the  drama  that  was  going  on  before  him. 
He  looked  from  the  Cavaliere  to  Mrs.  Light,  whose  eyes 
were  now  quite  dry  and  were  fixed  in  stony  hardness  on 
the  floor. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  265 

"  If  you  could  bring  yourself,"  the  Cavaliere  said,  in  a 
low,  soft,  tenderly-urgent  voice,  "  to  address  a  few  words 
of  solemn  remonstrance  to  Miss  Light  you  would  perhaps 
do  more  for  us  than  you  know.  You  would  save  several 
persons  a  great  deal  of  pain.  The  dear  signora  first,  and 
then  Christina  herself.  Christina  in  particular.  Me  too  I 
might  take  the  liberty  to  add  !  " 

There  was  to  Rowland  something  acutely  touching  in 
this  humble  petition.  He  had  always  felt  a  sort  of 
imaginative  tenderness  for  poor  little  unexplained  Giacosa, 
and  these  words  seemed  a  supreme  manifestation  of  the 
mysterious  obliquity  of  his  life.  All  of  a  sudden  as  he 
watched  the  Cavaliere  something  occurred  to  him  ;  it  was 
something  very  odd  and  it  stayed  his  glance  suddenly  from 
again  turning  to  Mrs.  Light.  His  idea  embarrassed  him, 
and  to  carry  off  his  embarrasment,  he  repeated  that  it  was 
folly  to  suppose  that  his  words  would  have  any  weight  with 
Christina. 

The  Cavaliere  stepped  forward  and  laid  two  fingers  on 
Rowland's  breast.  "  Do  you  wish  to  know  the  truth  % 
You  are  the  only  man  whose  words  she  remembers." 

Rowland  was  going  from  surprise  to  surprise.  "  I  will 
say  what  I  can  !  "  he  said.  By  this  time  he  had  ventured 
to  glance  at  Mrs.  Light.  She  was  looking  at  him  askance, 
as  if  upon  this  she  were  suddenly  mistrusting  his  motives. 
"If  you  fail,"  she  said  sharply,  "we  have  something 
else  !     But  please  to  lose  no  time." 

She  had  hardly  spoken  when  the  sound  of  a  short  sharp 
growl  caused  the  company  to  turn.  Christina's  fleecy 
poodle  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  great  drawing-room 
with  his  muzzle  lowered,  in  pompous  defiance  of  the  three 
conspirators  against  the  comfort  of  his  mistress.  This 
young  lady's  claims  for  him  seemed  justified;  he  was  an 
animal  of  amazing  shrewdness.  He  had  preceded  Christina 
as  a  sort  of  vanguard  of  defence,  and  she  now  slowly 
advanced  from  a  neighbouring  room. 

"  You  will  be  so  good  as  to  listen  to  Mr.  Mallet,"  her 
mother  said  in  a  terrible  voice,  "  and  to  reflect  carefully  on 
what  he  says.  I  suppose  you  will  admit  that  he  is  dis- 
interested. In  half  an  hour  you  shall  hear  from  me  again ! " 
And  passing  her  hand  through  the  Cavaliere' s  arm  she 
swept  rapidly  out  of  the  room. 


266  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Christina  looked  hard  at  Rowland,  but  offered  him  no 
greeting.  She  was  very  pale,  and  strangely  enough  it  at 
first  seemed  to  Rowland  that  her  beauty  was  in  eclipse. 
But  he  very  soon  perceived  that  it  had  only  changed  its 
character,  and  that  if  it  was  a  trifle  less  brilliant  than 
usual  it  was  admirably  touching  and  noble.  The  clouded 
light  of  her  eyes,  the  magnificent  gravity  of  her  features, 
the  conscious  erectness  of  her  head,  might  have  belonged 
to  a  deposed  sovereign  or  a  condemned  martyr.  "  Why 
have  you  come  here  at  this  time  ? ' '  she  asked. 

"  Your  mother  sent  for  me  in  pressing  terms,  and  I  was 
very  glad  to  have  an  opportunity  to  speak  to  you." 

"  Have  you  come  to  help  me  or  to  persecute  me  ?  " 

"  I  have  as  little  power  to  do  one  as  I  have  desire  to  do 
the  other.  I  came  in  great  part  to  ask  you  a  question. 
First,  is  your  decision  irrevocable  ?  " 

Christina's  two  hands  had  been  hanging  clasped  in  front 
of  her;  she  separated  them  and  flung  them  apart  by  an 
admirable  gesture. 

"  Would  you  have  done  this  if  you  had  not  seen  Mary 
Garland?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  quickened  attention ;  then  sud- 
denly, ''This  is  interesting  !  "  she  cried.  "Let  us  have  it 
out."  And  she  flung  herself  into  a  chair  and  pointed  to 
another. 

"  You  don't  answer  my  question,"  Rowland  said. 

"  You  have  no  right  that  I  know  of  to  ask  it.  But  it's 
a  very  clever  one ;  so  clever  that  it  deserves  an  answer. 
Very  likely  I  should  not." 

"  Last  night  when  I  said  that  to  myself  I  was  extremely 
angry." 

"  Oh  dear,  and  you  are  not  angry  now  1  " 

"  I  am  less  angry." 

"  How  very  tiresome !  But  you  can  say  something  at  least." 

"If  I  were  to  say  what  is  uppermost  in  my  mind  I 
should  say  that  face  to  face  with  you  it  is  never  possible 
to  condemn  you." 

''Perche?" 

"  You  know,  yourself !  But  I  can  at  least  say  now 
what  I  felt  last  night.  It  seemed  to  me  that  you  had 
consciously  cruelly  dealt  a  blow  at  that  poor  girl.  Do  you 
understand  ?  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  267 

"  Wait  a  moment !  "  And  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  him 
she  inclined  her  head  on  one  side  meditatively.  Then  a 
cold  brilliant  smile  covered  her  face,  and  she  made  a 
gesture  of  negation.  "  I  see  your  train  of  reasoning,  but 
it's  quite  wrong.  I  meant  no  harm  to  Miss  Garland  ;  I 
should  be  extremely  s.orry  to  make  her  suffer.  Tell  me 
you  believe  that." 

This  was  said  with  ineffable  candour.  Rowland  heard 
himself  answering,  "  I  believe  it  !  " 

"  And  yet  in  a  sense  your  supposition  was  true,"  Christina 
continued.  "  I  took  into  my  head,  as  I  told  you,  to  be 
greatly  struck  with  the  fiancee,  and  I  frankly  confess  I 
was  jealous  of  her.  What  I  envied  her  was  simply  her 
character  !  I  said  to  myself,  '  She  in  my  place  wouldn't 
marry  Casamassima.'  I  could  not  help  saying  it,  and  I 
said  it  so  often  that  I  found  a  kind  of  inspiration  in  it. 
I  hated  the  idea  of  being  worse  than  she — of  doing  some- 
thing that  she  would  not  do.  I  might  be  bad  by  nature, 
but  I  needn't  be  by  intention.  The  end  of  it  all  was  that 
I  found  it  impossible  not  to  tell  the  Prince  that  I  was  his 
very  humble  servant,  but  that  decidedly  I  could  not  marry 
him." 

"  Are  you  sure  it  was  only  of  Miss  Garland's  character 
that  you  were  jealous,  not  of — not  of — " 

"  Speak  out,  I  beg  you.    We  are  talking  philosophy  !  " 

"  Not  of  her  affection  i6r  her  cousin  %  " 

"  Sure  is  a  good  deal  to  ask.  Still,  I  think  I  may  say 
it !  There  are  two  reasons  ;  one,  at  least,  I  can  tell  you  : 
her  affection  has  not  a  shadow's  weight  with  Mr.  Hudson  ! 
Why  then  should  one  feel  it  %  " 

"  And  what  is  the  other  reason  %  " 

"  Excuse  me  ;  that  is  my  own  affair." 

Rowland  was  puzzled,  baffled,  charmed,  inspired.  "  1 
have  promised  your  mother,"  he  presently  went  on,  "  to 
say  something  in  favour  of  Prince  Casamassima." 

She  shook  her  head  sadly.  "  Prince  Casamassima  needs 
nothing  that  you  can  say  for  him.  He  is  a  magnificent 
'parti.     I  know  it  perfectly,'' 

"  You  know  also  of  the  extreme  affliction  of  your 
mother  % " 

"  Her  affliction  is  demonstrative.  She  has  been  abusing 
me  for  the  last  twenty-four  hoars  as  if  I  were  the  vilest  of 


«68  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

the  vile."  To  see  Chri.stina  sit  there  in  the  purity  of  her 
beauty  and  say  this,  might  have  made  one  bow  one's  head 
with  a  kind  of  awo.  *'  I  have  failed  of  respect  to  her  at 
other  times,  but  1  have  not  done  so  now.  Since  we  are 
talking  philosophy,"  she  pursued,  with  a  gentle  smile,  "  I 
may  say  it's  a  simple  matter  !  I  don't  love  that  excellent 
Prince.  It's  very  true  however  that  making  up  one's  mind 
that  one  doesn't  love  a  Prince  is  rather  a  complicated 
operation  !  I  spoke  just  now  of  inspiration.  The  inspira- 
tion has  been  groat,  but — I  frankly  confess  it — the  decision 
has  been  hard.  Shall  I  tell  you  1  "  she  demanded,  with 
sudden  ardour  ;  "  will  you  understand  me  'i  It  was  on  the 
one  side  the  world,  the  splendid,  beautiful,  powerful,  inter- 
esting world.  I  know  what  that  is ;  I  have  tasted  of  the 
cup,  I  know  its  sweetness.  Ah,  if  I  chose,  if  I  should 
let  myself  go,  if  I  should  fling  everything  to  the  winds, 
the  world  and  I  would  be  famous  friends  !  I  know  its 
merits  and  I  think  without  vanity  it  would  see  mine.  You 
should  see  some  fine  things  !  I  should  like  to  be  a  princess, 
and  I  think  I  should  be  a  very  good  one  ;  I  would  play 
my  part  well.  I  am  fond  of  luxury,  I  am  fond  of  a  great 
society,  I  am  fond  of  being  looked  at.  I  am  corrupt,  cor- 
rupting, corruption  !  Ah,  what  a  pity  that  couldn't  be 
too  I  Mercy  of  Heaven  !  "  There  was  a  passionate  tremor 
iu  her  voice ;  she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands  and  sat 
motionless.  Rowland  saw  that  an  intense  agitation,  hitherto 
successfully  repressed,  underlay  the  exquisite  archness  of 
her  manner,  and  he  could  easily  believe  that  her  battle 
had  been  fierce.  She  rose  quickly  and  turned  away,  walked 
a  few  paces  and  stopped.  In  a  moment  she  was  facing  him 
again  with  tears  in  her  eyes  and  a  flush  in  her  cbeeks. 
'  But  you  needn't  tliink  I  am  afraid  !  "  she  said.  "  I  have 
chosen,  and  I  shall  hold  to  it.  I  have  something  here, 
here,  here  /  "  and  she  patted  her  heart.  "  It's  my  own.  I 
shall  not  part  with  it.  Is  it  what  you  call  an  ideal  1  I  don't 
know ;  I  don't  care  1  It  is  brighter  than  the  Casamassima 
diamonds  !  " 

"You  say  that  certain  things  are  your  own  affair," 
Rowland  presently  rejoined ;  "  but  I  must  nevertheless 
make  an  attempt  to  learn  what  all  this  means — what  it 
promises  for  my  friend  Hudson.  Is  there  any  hope  for 
him  1  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  269 

♦*  This  is'  a  point  I  can't  discuss  with  you  minutely.  I 
like  him  very  much." 

"  Would  you  marry  him  if  he  were  to  ask  you  1  " 

*'  He  has  asked  me." 

"  And  if  he  asks  again  1 " 

"  I  shall  marry  no  one  just  now." 

"  Roderick,"  said  Rowland,  "  has  great  hopes." 

"  Does  he  know  of  my  rupture  with  the  Prince  1  " 

"  He  is  making  a  great  holiday  of  it." 

Christina  pulled  her  poodle  towards  her  and  began  to 
smooth  his  silky  fleece.  "  I  like  him  very  much,"  she 
repeated  ;  "  much  more  than  I  used  to.  Since  you  told 
me  all  that  about  him  at  St.  Cecilia's  I  have  felt  a  great 
friendship  for  him.  There  is  something  very  fine  about 
him  ;  he  is  not  afraid  of  anything.  He  is  not  afraid  of 
failure  ;  he  is  not  afraid  of  ruin  or  death." 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  said  Rowland,  bitterly  ;  "  he  is  incon- 
veniently picturesque." 

"  Picturesque,  yes  ;  that's  what  lie  is.  I  am  very  sorry 
for  him." 

"  Your  mother  told  me  just  now  that  you  had  said  that 
you  didn't  care  a  button  for  him." 

'*  Very  likely  !  I  meant  as  a  lover.  One  doesn't  want 
a  lover  one  pities,  and  one  doesn't  want — of  all  things  m 
the  world — a  picturesque  husband!  I  should  like  Mr. 
Hudson  as  something  else.  I  wish  he  were  my  brother, 
so  that  he  could  never  t:alk  to  me  of  marriage.  Then  I 
could  adore  him.  I  would  nurse  him,  I  would  wait  on 
him  and  save  him  ail  disagreeable  rubs  and  shocks.  I  am 
much  stronger  than  he,  and  I  would  stand  between  him 
and  the  world.  Indeed  with  Mr.  Hudson  for  my  brother 
I  should  be  willing  to  live  and  die  an  old  maid !  " 
"  Have  you  ever  told  him  all  this  ?  " 
"  1  suppose  so  ;  I  have  told  him  five  hundred  things  1 
If  it  will  please  you  I  will  tell  him  again." 

"  Oh,  Heaven  forbid  !  "  cried  poor  Rowland  with  a 
groan. 

He  was  lingering  there,  weighing  his  sympathy  against 
his  irritation  and  feeling  it  sink  in  the  scale,  when  _  the 
curtain  of  a  distant  doorway  was  lifted  and  Mrs.  Light 
passed  across  the  room.  She  stopped  half-way  and  gave 
our  interlocutors  a  flushed  and  menacing  look.     It  found 


270  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

apparently  little  to  reassure  her,  and  she  moved  away  with 
a  passionate  toss  of  her  drapery.  Rowland  thought  with 
horror  of  the  sinister  compulsion  to  which  the  young  girl 
was  apparently  still  to  be  subjected.  In  this  ethereal  flight 
of  her  moral  nature  there  was  a  certain  painful  effort  and 
tension  of  wing ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  piteous  to  imagine 
her  being  rudely  jerked  down  to  the  base  earth.  She  would 
need  all  her  magnanimity  for  her  own  contest,  and  it  seemed 
gross  to  make  farther  demands  upon  it  on  Roderick's 
behalf. 

Rowland  took  up  his  hat.  "  You  asked  a  while  ago  if 
I  had  come  to  help  you,"  he  said.  "If  I  knew  how  I 
might  help  you  I  should  bo  particularly  glad." 

She  stood  silent  a  moment,  reflecting.  Then  at  last 
looking  up,  "  You  remember  your  promising  six  months 
ago  to  tell  me  what  you  should  finally  think  of  me  1  I 
should  like  you  to  tell  me  now." 

He  could  hardly  help  smiling.  Madame  Grandoni  had 
insisted  on  the  fact  that  Christina  was  an  actress,  and  this 
little  speech  seemed  a  glimpse  of  the  cothurnus.  She  had 
played  her  great  scene,  she  had  made  her  point,  and  now 
she  had  her  eye  at  the  hole  in  the  curtain  and  she  was 
watching  the  house  !  But  she  blushed  as  she  perceived  his 
smile,  and  her  blush,  which  was  beautiful,  made  her  fault 
venial. 

"  You  are  an  excellent  girl !  "  he  said,  very  positively  ; 
and  then  gave  her  his  hand  in  farewell. 

There  was  a  great  chain  of  rooms  in  Mrs.  Light's  apart- 
ment, the  pride  and  joy  of  the  hostess  on  festal  evenings, 
through  which  the  departing  visitor  passed  before  reaching 
the  door.  In  one  of  the  first  of  these  Rowland  found 
himself  waylaid  and  arrested  by  the  distracted  mistress 
of  the  house. 

"  Well,  well  1  "  she  cried  seizing  his  arm.  "  Has  she 
listened  you — have  you  moved  her  ']  " 

"  In  Heaven's  name,  dear  madam,"  Rowland  begged, 
"  leave  the  poor  girl  alone  !     She  is  behaving  very  well !  " 

"  Behaving  very  well  1  Is  that  all  you  have  to  tell 
me  ?  I  don't  believe  you  said  a  proper  word  to  her.  You 
are  conspiring  together  to  kill  me  !  " 

Rowland  tried  to  soothe  her,  to  remonstrate,  to  persuade 
her  that  it  was  ecjually  cruel  and  unwise  to  try  to  force 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  271 

matters.  But  she  answered  him  only  with  harsh  lamenta- 
tions and  imprecations,  and  ended  by  telling  him  that  her 
daughter  was  her  own  property  and  that  his  interference 
was  insolent  and  scandalous.  Her  disappointment  seemed 
really  to  have  blighted  her  wits,  and  hio  only-  possible 
rejoinder  was  to  take  a  summary  departure. 

A  moment  later  he  came  upon  the  Cavaliere,  who  was 
sitting  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  his  head  in  his 
hands,  so  buried  in  thought  that  Rowland  had  to  call 
him  before  he  roused  himself.  Giacosa  looked  at  him  a 
moment  keenly,  and  then  gave  an  interrogative  shake  of 
the  head. 

Rowland  gave  a  shake  negative,  to  which  the  Cavaliere 
responded  by  a  long  melancholy  sigh.  "  But  her  mother 
is  determined  to  put  on  the  screw,"  said  Rowland. 

"  It  seems  that  it  must  be  ! " 

"  Do  you  consider  that  it  must  be  ^  " 

"  I  don't  differ  with  Mrs.  Light !  " 

'•  It  will  be  a  great  cruelty  !  " 

The  Cavaliere  gave  a  tragic  shrug.  "  Eh  !  it  isn't  an 
easy  world." 

"  You  should  do  nothing  to  make  it  harder  then." 

"  What  will  you  have  1     It's  a  magnificent  marriage." 

"  You  disappoint  me,  Cavaliere,"  said  Rowland.  "  I 
imagined  you  appreciated  the  great  elevation  of  Christina's 
attitude.  She  doesn't  love  the  Prince  ;  she  has  let  the 
matter  stand  or  fall  by  that." 

The  old  man  grasped  him  by  the  hand  and  stood  a 
moment  with  averted  eyes.  At  last,  looking  at  him,  ho 
held  up  two  fingers. 

"  I  have  two  hearts,"  he  said ;  "  one  for  myself,  one 
for  the  world.  This  one  is  furious  with  the  blessed  ragazza 
— the  other  is  enchanted  with  her  !  One  suffers  horribly 
at  what  the  other  does." 

"  I  don't  understand  double  people,  Cavaliere,"  Rowland 
said,  "  and  I  don't  pretend  to  understand  you.  But  I  have 
guessed  you  are  going  to  play  some  secret  card." 

"That  card  is  Mrs.  Light's,  not  mine,"  said  the 
Cavaliere. 

"  It's  a  menace,  at  any  rate  ?  " 

"  The  sword  of  Damocles  !  It  hangs  by  a  hair.  Christina 
is  to   be  given   ten  minutes  to  recant,   under  penalty  of 


272  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

feeling  it  fall.  On  the  blade  there  is  something  written — 
in  strange  characters.  Don't  scratch  your  head  ;  you  will 
not  make  it  out." 

"  I  think  I  have  guessed  it,"  said  Rowland  after  a  com- 
prehensive silence.  The  Cavaliere  looked  at  him  blankly 
but  intently,  and  Rowland  added,  ''Though  there  are 
some  signs  indeed  I  don't  understand.' 

"  Puzzle  them  out  at  your  leisure,"  said  the  Cavaliere, 
shaking  his  hand.  "  I  hear  Mrs.  Light ;  I  must  go  to 
ray  post.  I  wish  you  were  a  Catholic ;  I  would  beg  you 
to  step  into  the  first  church  you  come  to  and  pray  for 
us  the  next  half-hour. 

"  For  '  us  '  ?     For  whom  ?  " 

"  For  all  of  us.  At  any  rate  remember  this — I  delight 
in  the  Christina  !  " 

Rowland  heard  the  rustle  of  Mrs.  Light's  dress ;  he 
turned  away,  and  the  Cavaliere  went  as  he  said  to  his 
post.  Rowland  for  the  next  couple  of  days  kept  thinking 
of  the  sword  of  Damocles. 


XXI. 


Of  Roderick  meanwhile  he  saw  nothing ;  but  he  im- 
mediately went  to  Mrs.  Hudson  and  assured  her  that 
her  son  was  in  even  exceptionally  good  health  and  spirits. 
After  this  he  called  again  on  the  two  ladies  from  North 
ampton,  but  as  Roderick's  absence  continued,  he  was  able 
to  be  neither  comforting  nor  comforted.  Mary's  apprehen- 
sive face  seemed  to  him  an  image  of  his  own  state  of  mind. 
He  was  deeply  depressed,  he  felt  that  there  was  a  storm 
in  the  air,  and  he  wished  it  would  come  and  wash  away 
their  troubles.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day  he  went 
into  Saint  Peter's,  his  frequent  resort  whenever  the  outer 
world  was  disagreeable.  From  a  heart-ache  to  a  Roman 
rain  there  were  few  contrarieties  the  great  church  did  not 
help  him  to  forget.  He  had  wandered  there  for  half  an 
hour  when  he  came  upon    a  short  figure  lurking  in  the 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  273 

shadow  of  one  of  the  piers.  He  saw  it  was  that  of  an 
artist  hastily  transferring  to  his  sketch-book  a  memento  of 
some  fleeting  variation  in  the  scenery  of  the  basilica ;  and 
in  a  moment  he  perceived  that  the  artist  was  little  Sam 
Singleton. 

Singleton  pocketed  his  sketch-book  with  a  guilty  air, 
as  if  it  cost  his  modesty  a  pang  to  be  detected  in  this 
greedy  culture  of  opportunity.  Rowland  always  enjoyed 
meeting  him  ;  talking  with  him  in  these  days  was  as  good 
as  a  wayside  gush  of  clear  cold  water  on  a  long  hot  walk. 
There  was  perhaps  no  drinking-vessel,  and  you  had  to 
apply  your  lips  to  some  informal  conduit ;  but  the  result 
was  always  a  sense  of  extreme  moral  refreshment.  On  this 
occasion  he  mentally  blessed  the  ingenuous  little  artist,  and 
heard  presently  with  regret  that  he  was  to  leave  Rome  on 
the  morrow.  Singleton  had  come  to  bid  farewell  to  Saint 
Peter's,  and  he  was  gathering  a  few  last  impressions.  He 
had  earned  a  pocketful  of  money  and  he  was  meaning  to 
take  a  summer's  holiday  ;  going  to  Switzerland,  to  Germany, 
to  Paris.  In  the  autumn  he  was  to  return  home  ;  his 
family — composed  as  Rowland  knew  of  a  father  who  was 
cashier  in  a  bank  and  five  unmarried  sisters,  one  of  whom 
gave  lyceum-lectures  on  woman's  rights,  the  whole  resident 
at  Buffalo,  New  York — had  been  writing  him  peremptory 
letters  and  appealing  to  him  as  a  son,  brother,  and  fellow- 
citizen.  He  would  have  been  grateful  for  another  year  in 
Rome,  but  he  submitted  to  destiny  the  more  patiently  that 
he  had  laid  up  treasure  which  in  Buffalo  would  seem  in- 
finite. They  talked  some  time ;  Rowland  hoped  they  might 
meet  in  Switzerland  and  take  a  walk  or  two  together. 
Singleton  seemed  to  feel  that  Buffalo  had  marked  him  for 
her  own ;  he  was  afraid  he  should  not  see  Rome  again  for 
many  a  year. 

"So  you  expect  to  live  at  Buffalo  T'  Rowland  inquired, 
looking  down  the  splendid  avenue  of  the  nave. 

"  Well,  it  will  depend  upon  the  views — upon  the  attitude 
— of  my  family,"  Singleton  replied.  "  Oh  I  think  I  shall 
get  on ;  I  think  it  can  be  done.  If  I  find  it  can  be  done 
I  shall  really  be  quite  proud  of  it ;  as  an  artist  of  course  I 
mean,  you  know.  Do  you  know  I  have  some  nine  hundred 
sketches?  I  shall  live  in  my  portfolio.  And  so  long  as 
one  is  not  in  Ptome,  pray  what  does  it  matter  where  one  is  ? 

s 


274  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

But    how    I    shall    envy  all    you    Romans — you    and    Mr. 
Gloriani — and  Mr.  Hudson  especially." 

"  Don't  envy  Hudson  ;  he  has  nothing  to  envy." 

Singleton  chuckled  at  what  he  considered  a  harmless 
jest.  "  Yes,  he's  going  to  be  the  great  man  of  our  time  ! 
And  I  say,  Mr.  Mallet,  isn't  it  a  mighty  comfort  that  it's 
we  who  have  turned  him  out  ? " 

"  Between  ourselves,"  murmured  Rowland,  "  he  has 
disappointed  me." 

Singleton  stared  open-mouthed.  "  Dear  me,  what  did 
you  expect  %  " 

"Verily,"  said  Rowland  to  himself,  "what  did  I 
expect  ?  " 

"  I  confess,"  cried  Singleton,  "  I  can't  judge  him  ra- 
tionally. He  fascinates  me;  he's  the  sort  of  man  one 
makes  one's  hero  of." 

"  Strictly  speaking  he  is  not  a  hero,"  Rowland  re- 
marked. 

Singleton  looked  intensely  grave,  and  with  almost  tearful 
eyes,  '*  Is  there  anything  amiss — anything  out  of  the  way 
about  him  ?  "  he  timidly  asked.  Then  as  Rowland  hesi- 
tated to  reply  he  quickly  added,  "  Please,  if  there  is,  don't 
tell  me  !  I  want  to  know  no  evil  of  him,  and  I  think  I 
should  hardly  believe  it.  In  my  memories  of  this  Roman 
artist  life  he  will  be  the  central  figure.  He  will  stand 
there  in  radiant  relief,  as  beautiful  and  unspotted  as  one 
of  his  own  statues  !  " 

"  Amen  !  "  said  Rowland  gravely.  He  remembered 
afresh  that  the  sea  is  inhabited  by  big  fishes  and  little,  and 
that  the  latter  often  find  their  way  down  the  throats  of 
the  former.  Singleton  was  going  to  spend  the  afternoon 
in  taking  last  looks  at  certain  other  places,  and  Rowland 
offered  to  join  him  on  his  sentimental  circuit.  But  as^they 
were  preparing  to  leave  the  church  he  heard  himself 
suddenly  addressed  from  behind.  Turning  he  beheld  a 
young  woman  whom  he  immediately  recognised  as  Madame 
Grandoni's  maid.  Her  mistress  was  present,  she  said,  and 
begged  to  confer  with  him  before  he  departed. 

This  summons  obliged  Rowland  to  separate  from  Single- 
ton, to  whom  he  bade  farewell.  He  followed  the  messenger, 
and  presently  found  Madame  Grandoni  occupying  a  liberal 
area  on  the  steps  of  the  tribune,  behind  the  great  altar, 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  275 

where,  spreading  a  shawl  on  the  polished  red  marble,  she 
had  comfortably  seated  herself.  He  suspected  that  she 
had  something  especial  to  impart,  and  she  lost  no  time  in 
bringing  forth  her  treasure. 

"  Don't  shout  very  loud,"  she  said,  "  remember  that  we 
are  in  church  ;  there's  a  limit  to  the  noise  one  may  make 
even  in  Saint  Peter's.  Christina  Light  was  married  this 
morning  to  Prince  Casamassima." 

Rowland  did  not  shout  at  all ;  he  gave  a  deep  short 
murmur.     "  Married — this  morning  ?  " 

"  Married  this  morning,  at  seven  o'clock,  le  plus  tran- 
quilleinent  du  monde,  before  three  or  four  persons.  The 
young  couple  left  Pome  an  hour  afterwards." 

For  some  moments  this  seemed  to  him  really  terrible ; 
the  dark  little  drama  of  which  he  had  caught  a  glimpse 
had  played  itself  out.  He  had  believed  that  Christina 
would  resist ;  that  she  had  succumbed  was  a  proof  that 
the  pressure  had  been  cruel.  Rowland's  imagination  fol- 
lowed her  forth  with  an  irresistible  tremor  into  the  world 
towards  which  she  was  rolling  away  with  her  unappreciated 
husband  and  her  stitled  ideal ;  but  it  must  be  confessed 
that  if  the  first  impulse  of  his  compassion  was  for  Chris- 
tina, the  second  was  for  Prince  Casamassima.  Madame 
Grandoni  acknowledged  an  extreme  curiosity  as  to  the 
secret  springs  of  these  strange  doings — Casamassima's 
sudden  dismissal,  his  still  more  sudden  recall,  the  hurried 
private  marriage.  "  Listen,"  said  Rowland  presently,  "  and 
I  will  tell  you  something."  And  he  related  in  detail  his 
last  visit  to  Mrs.  Light  and  his  talk  with  this  lady,  with 
Christina  and  with  the  Cavaliere. 

"  Good,"  she  said  ;  "  it's  all  very  curious.  But  it's  a 
riddle,  and  I  only  half  guess  it." 

"  y^ell,"  said  Rowland,  "  I  desire  to  harm  no  one ;  but 
certain  suppositions  have  taken  shape  in  my  mind  which 
serve  as  the  answers  to  two  or  three  riddles." 

"  It  is  very  true,"  Madame  Grandoni  replied,  "  that  the 
Cavaliere,  as  he  stands,  has  always  needed  to  be  ex- 
plained." 

"  He  is  explained  by  the  hypothesis  that  three-and- 
twenty  years  ago,  at  Ancona,  Mrs.  Light  had  a  lover." 

"  I  see.  Ancona  was  dull,  Mrs.  Light  was  lively,  and 
— three-and-twenty  years  ago,  perhaps — the  Cavaliere  was 

s  2 


276  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

fascinating.     Doubtless  it  would  be  fairer  to  say  that  he 
was  fascinated.     Poor  Giacosa  !  " 

"  He  has  had  his  compensation,"  Rowland  said.  "  He 
has  been  passionately  fond  of  Christina." 

"  Naturally.     But  has  Christina  never  wondered  why  ?  " 

"  If  she  had  been  near  guessing,  her  mother's  shabby 
treatment  of  him  would  have  put  her  off  the  scent.  Mrs. 
Light's  conscience  has  apparently  told  her  that  she  could 
expiate  an  hour's  too  great  kindness  by  twenty  years'  con- 
tempt. So  she  kept  her  secret.  But  what  is  the  profit  of 
having  a  secret  unless  you  can  make  some  use  of  it  1  The 
day  at  last  came  when  she  could  turn  hers  to  account ; 
she  could  let  the  skeleton  out  of  the  closet  and  create 
a  panic." 
?  "  1  don't  understand." 

"  Neither  do  I,  morally,"  said  Rowland.  "I  only  con- 
ceive that  there  was  a  horrible  fabulous  scene.  The  poor 
Cavaliere  stood  outside,  at  the  door,  white  as  a  corpse  and 
as  dumb.  The  mother  and  daughter  had  it  out  together. 
Mrs.  Light  burnt  her  ships.  When  she  came  out  she  had 
three  lines  of  writing  in  her  daughter's  hand,  which  the 
Cavaliere  was  despatched  with  to  the  Prince.  They  over- 
took the  young  man  in  time,  and  when  he  reappeared  he 
was  delighted  to  dispense  with  farther  waiting.  I  don't 
know  what  he  thought  of  the  look  in  his  bride's  face ;  but 
that  is  how  I  roughly  reconstruct  history." 

"  Christina  was  forced  to  decide  then  that  she  could  not 
afford  not  to  be  a  princess  1 " 

"  She  had  to  knock  under  to  a  revelation — to  humiliation. 
She  was  assured  that  it  was  not  for  her  to  make  conditions, 
but  to  thank  her  stars  that  there  were  none  made  for  her. 
If  she  persisted,  she  might  find  it  coming  to  pass  that 
there  would  be  conditions,  and  the  formal  rupture — the 
rupture  that  the  world  would  hear  of  and  pry  into — -would 
then  proceed  from  the  Prince  and  not  from  her." 

"  That's  all  nonsense  !  "  said  Madame  Grandoni.  "  What 
would  the  world  care  1  " 

**  It  is  nonsense  to  us,  yes  ;  but  not  to  the  proudest  girl 
in  the  world,  deeply  wounded  in  her  pride  and  not  stopping 
to  calculate  probabilities,  but  mufiiling  her  shame  with  an 
almost  sensuous  relief  in  a  splendour  that  stood  within  her 
grasp  and  would  cover  everything.     Is  it  not  possible  that 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  277 

the  late  Mr.  Light  had  made  an  outbreak  before  wit- 
nesses who  are  still  living  1 — that  the  child's  coming 
into  the  world  was  in  itself  a  scandal?  Say  Light  had 
quarrelled  with  his  wife  and  was  virtually  separated  from 
her." 

"  Certainly  her  marriage  now,"  said  Madame  Grandoni, 
less  analytically,  "  has  the  advantage  that  it  takes  her 
away  from  her  dear  parents !  " 

This  lady's  farther  comments  upon  the  event  are  not 
immediately  pertinent  to  our  history ;  there  were  some 
other  comments  of  which  Rowland  had  a  deeply  oppressive 
foreboding.  He  called  on  the  evening  of  the  morrow  upon 
Mrs.  Hudson,  and  found  Roderick  with  the  two  ladies. 
Their  companion  had  apparently  but  lately  entered,  and 
Rowland  afterwards  learned  that  it  was  his  first  appearance 
since  the  writing  of  the  note  which  had  so  distressed  his 
mother.  He  had  flung  himself  upon  a  sofa,  where  he  sat 
with  his  chin  upon  his  breast,  staring  before  him  with  a 
sinister  spark  in  his  eye.  He  fixed  his  gaze  on  Rowland, 
but  gave  him  no  greeting.  He  had  evidently  been  saying 
something  to  startle  his  companions ;  Mrs.  Hudson  had 
gone  and  seated  herself,  timidly  and  imploringly,  on  the 
edge  of  the  sofa,  trying  to  take  his  hand.  Mary  was 
applying  herself  to  a  piece  of  needlework  with  conscious 
intentness. 

Mrs.  Hudson  gave  Rowland  on  his  entrance  a  touching 
look  of  gratitude.  "  Oh,  we  have  such  blessed  news  !  "  she 
said.     "  Roderick  is  ready  to  leave  Rome." 

"It's  not  blessed  news;  it's  cursed  news!"  cried 
Roderick, 

"Oh,  but  we  are  very  glad,  my  son,  and  I  am  sure  you 
will  be  when  you  get  away.  You  are  looking  most  dread- 
fully thin ;  isn't  he,  Mr.  Mallet  ?  It's  plain  enough  you 
need  a  change.  I  am  sure  we  will  go  wherever  you  like. 
Where  should  you  like  to  go  1  " 

Roderick  turned  his  head  slowly  and  looked  at  her.  He 
had  let  her  take  his  hand,  which  she  pressed  tenderly 
between  her  own.  He  gazed  at  her  for  some  time  in 
silence.  "  Poor  mother  ! "  he  said  at  last,  very  incon- 
clusively. 

"  My  own  dear  son  ! "  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson  in  all  the 
innocence  of  her  trust. 


278  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

*'  I  don't  care  a  straw  where  you  go  !  I  don't  care  a 
straw  for  anything  !  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear  hoy,  you  must  not  say  that  before  all  of 
us  here —before  Mary,  before  Mr.  Mallet!  " 

"  Mary — Mr.  Mallet  i "  Roderick  repeated,  almost 
savagely.  He  released  himself  from  the  clasp  of  his 
mother's  hand  and  turned  away,  leaning  his  elbows  on 
his  knees  and  holding  his  head  in  his  hands.  There  was 
a  silence  ;  Kowland  said  nothing,  because  he  was  watching 
the  girl.  "  Why  should  I  stand  on  ceremony  with  Mary 
and  Mr.  Mallet  1 "  Roderick  presently  added.  "  Mary  pre- 
tends to  believe  I  am  a  fine  fellow,  and  if  she  believes  it 
as  she  ought,  nothing  I  can  say  will  alter  her  opinion. 
Mallet  knows  I  am  a  hopeless  humbug ;  so  I  needn't  mince 
my  words  with  him." 

"  Ah,  my  dear,  don't  use  such  dreadful  language  !  "  said 
Mrs.  Hudson.  "  Aren't  we  all  devoted  to  you,  and  proud 
of  you,  and  waiting  only  to  hear  what  you  want,  so  that 
we  may  do  it  1  " 

Roderick  got  up  and  began  to  walk  about  the  room  ;  he 
was  evidently  perfectly  reckless.  Rowdand  observed  with 
anxiety  that  Mrs.  Hudson,  who  did  not  know  on  what 
delicate  ground  she  was  treading,  was  disposed  to  chide 
him  endearingly,  as  a  mere  expression  of  tenderness.  He 
foresaw  that  she  would  bring  down  the  hovering  thunder- 
bolt on  her  head. 

"  In  God's  name,"  Roderick  cried,  "  don't  remind  me  of 
my  obligations  !  It's  intolerable  to  me,  and  I  don't  believe 
it's  pleasant  to  Mallet.  I  know  they  are  tremendous — I 
know  I  shall  never  repay  them.  I  am  bankrupt !  Do  you 
know  what  that  means  ?  " 

The  poor  lady  sat  staring  in  dismay,  and  Rowland  angrily 
interfered.  "  Don't  talk  such  stuff  to  your  mother  !  "  he 
cried.     "  Don't  you  see  you  are  frightening  her  1 " 

"  Frightening  her  1  she  may  as  well  be  frightened  first 
as  last.     Do  I  frighten  you,  mother  1  " 

"  Oh,  Roderick,  what  do  you  mean  1  "  whimpered  the 
poor  lady.     "  Mr.  Mallet,  what  does  he  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  I  am  an  angry,  savage,  disappointed, 
miserable  man  !  "  Roderick  went  on.  "  I  mean  that  I 
can't  do  a  stroke  of  work  nor  think  a  profitable  thought  ! 
I  mean  that  I  am  in  a  state  of  helpless  rage  and  grief  and 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  279 

sh<ame  !  Helpless,  helpless — that's  what  it  is.  You  can't 
help  me,  poor  mother — not  with  kisses  nor  tears  nor 
prayers  !  Mary  can't  help  me — not  for  all  the  honour  she 
does  me  nor  all  the  big  books  on  art  that  she  pores  over. 
Mallet  can't  help  me — not  with  all  his  money  nor  all  his 
good  example  nor  all  his  friendship,  which  I  am  so 
immensely  well  aware  of  :  not  with  all  it  multiplied  a 
thousand  times  and  repeated  to  all  eternity  !  I  thought 
you  would  help  me,  you  and  Mary ;  that's  why  I  sent  for 
you.  But  you  can't,  don't  think  it !  The  sooner  you  give 
up  the  idea  the  better  for  you.  Give  up  being  proud  of 
me  too  ;  there's  nothing  left  of  me  to  be  proud  of  !  A 
year  ago  I  was  a  mighty  fine  fellow  ;  but  do  you  know 
what  has  become  of  me  now  ?  I  have  gone  to  the 
devil !  " 

There  was  something  in  the  ring  of  Roderick's  voice, 
as  he  uttered  these  words,  which  sent  them  home  with 
convincing  force. 

He  was  not  talking  for  effect,  or  the  mere  personal  plea- 
sure of  extravagant  and  paradoxical  utterance,  as  had 
often  enough  been  the  case  ere  this;  he  was  not  even 
talking  viciously  or  ill-humouredly.  He  was  talking  pas- 
sionately, desperately,  sincerely,  from  an  irresistible  need  to 
throw  off  the  oppressive  burden  of  his  mother's  confidence. 
His  cruel  eloquence  brought  the  poor  lady  to  her  feet,  and 
she  stood  there  with  clasped  hands,  petrified  and  voiceless. 
Mary  Garland  quickly  left  her  place,  came  straight  to 
Roderick  and  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm,  looking  at  him 
with  all  her  tormented  heart  in  her  eyes.  He  made  no 
movement  to  disengage  himself  ;  he  simply  shook  his  head 
several  times  in  dogged  negation  of  her  healing  powers. 
Rowland  had  been  living  for  the  past  month  in  such  in- 
tolerable expectancy  of  disaster  that  now  that  the  ice  was 
broken  and  the  fatal  plunge  taken  his  foremost  feeling  was 
almost  elation.  But  in  a  moment  his  conservative  instincts 
corrected  it. 

"I  really  don't  perceive,"  he  said,  "the  profit  of  your 
talking  in  just  this  way  at  just  this  time.  Don't  you  see 
how  you  are  making  your  mother  suffer  %  " 

"Do  I  enjoy  it  myself?"  cried  Roderick.  "Is  the 
suffering  all  on  your  side  and  theirs?  Do  I  look  as  if 
I  were  happy  and  were  stirring  you  up  with  a  stick  for 


280  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

m.y  amusement  1  Here  we  all  are  in  the  same  boat ;  we 
might  as  well  understand  each  other !  These  women 
must  know^  that  I  am  not  to  be  counted  on.  That  sounds 
remarkably  cool,  no  doubt,  and  I  certainly  don't  deny  your 
right  to  be  disgusted  with  me." 

"  Will  you  keep  what  you  have  got  to  say  till  another 
time,"  said  Mary,  "and  let  me  hear  it  alone?" 

"  Oh,  I  will  let  you  hear  it  as  often  as  you  please ;  but 
what's  the  use  of  keeping  it?  I  am  in  the  humour  now; 
it  won't  keep !  It's  a  very  simple  matter — it  isn't  worth 
keeping.  I  am  a  failure,  that's  all ;  I  am  not  a  hrst-rate 
man.  I  am  second-rate,  tenth-rate,  anything  you  please. 
After  that  it's  all  one  !  " 

Mary  turned  away  and  buried  her  face  in  her  hands ; 
but  Roderick,  struck  apjmrently  in  some  unwonted  fashion 
with  her  gesture,  drew  her  towards  him  again  and  went  on 
in  a  somewhat  different  tone.  "  It's  hardly  worth  while 
we  should  have  any  private  talk  about  this,  Mary,"  he 
said.  "  The  thing  would  be  comfortable  for  neither  of  us. 
It's  better  after  all  that  it  be  said  once  for  all  and  dis- 
missed. There  are  things  I  can't  talk  to  you  about.  Can 
I,  at  least  1     You  are  such  a  curious  creature  !  "  _ 

"  I  can  imagine  nothing  you  shouldn't  talk  to  me  about," 
said  Mary. 

"  You  are  not  afraid  1 "  he  demanded  sharply,  looking 
at  her. 

She  turned  away  abruptly,  with  lowered  eyes,  hesitating 
a  moment.  "  Anything  you  think  I  should  hear,  I  will 
hear,"  she  said.  And  then  she  returned  to  her  place  at 
the  window  and  took  up  her  work. 

"  I  have  had  a  great  blow,"  said  Roderick.  "  I  was  a 
great  ass,  but  it  doesn't  make  the  blow  any  easier  to 
bear." 

"  Mr.  Mallet,  tell  me  what  Roderick  means  !  "  said  Mrs. 
Hudson,  who  had  found  her  voice,  in  a  tone  more  per- 
emptory than  Rowland  had  ever  heard  her  use. 

"  He  ought  to  have  told  you  before,"  said  Roderick. 
"  Really,  Rowland,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  you 
ought!  You  could  have  given  a  much  better  account  of 
all  this  than  I  myself ;  better  especially  in  that  it  would 
have  been  more  lenient  to  me.  You  ought  to  have  let 
them  down  gently ;  it  would  have  saved  them  a  great  deal 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  281 

of  pain.     But  you  always  want  to  keep  things  so  quiet  ! 
Allow  me  to  say  that  it's  very  weak  of  you." 

"Speaking  too  well  of  you  is  a  fault  that's  easily 
mended  ! "  said  Rowland  with  a  laugh. 

"  Oh,  what  is  it,  sir ;  what  is  it  ?  "  groaned  Mrs.  Hudson 
insistently. 

"  It's  what  Roderick  says.     He's  a  failure  !  " 

Mary  Garland,  on  hearing  this  declaration,  gave  Rowland 
a  single  glance  and  then  rose,  laid  down  her  work  and 
walked  rapidly  out  of  the  room.  Mrs.  Hudson  tossed 
her  head  and  timidly  bristled.  "  This  from  you,  Mr. 
Mallet !  "  she  said  with  an  injured  air  which  Rowland 
found  harrowing. 

But  Roderick,  most  characteristically,  did  not  in  the 
least  resent  his  friend's  assertion ;  he  sent  him,  on  the 
contrary,  one  of  those  large,  clear  looks  of  his  which 
seemed  to  express  a  stoical  pleasure  in  Rowland's  frank- 
ness, and  which  set  his  companion  wondering  again,  as 
he  had  so  often  done  before,  at  the  extraordinary  incon- 
gruities of  his  temperament.  *'  My  dear  mother,"  Roderick 
said,  "  if  you  had  had  eyes  that  were  not  blinded  by  this 
sad  maternal  vanity  you  would  have  seen  all  this  for  your- 
self ;  you  would  have  seen  that  I  am  anything  but 
prosperous." 

"  Is  it  anything  about  money  1 "  cried  Mrs.  Hudson. 
"  Oh,  do  write  to  Mr.  Striker !  " 

"  Money  1 "  said  Roderick.  "  I  have  not  a  cent  of 
money  ;  I  am  bankrupt !  " 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Mallet,  how  could  you  let  him  1 "  asked  Mrs. 
Hudson  terribly. 

"  Everything  I  have  is  at  his  service,"  said  Rowland, 
feeling  ill. 

"  Of  course  Mr.  Mallet  will  help  you,  my  son  !  "  cried 
the  poor  lady  eagerly. 

"  Oh,  leave  Mr.  Mallet  alone  !  "  said  Roderick.  "  I  have 
squeezed  him  dry ;  it's  not  my  fault  if  he  has  anything 
left !  " 

"  Roderick,  what  have  you  done  with  all  your  money  1 " 
his  mother  demanded. 

"  Thrown  it  away  !  It  was  no  such  great  amount.  I 
have  done  nothing  this  winter." 

"  You  have  done  nothing  1 " 


282  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"'I  have  done  no  work  !  Why  in  the  world  didn't  you 
^uess  it  and  spare  me  all  this  1  Couldn't  you  see  I  was 
idle,  distracted,  debauched  1  " 

"  Debauched,  my  dear  son  1  "  Mrs.  Hudson  repeated. 

"  That's  over  for  the  present !  But  couldn't  you  see — 
couldn't  Mary  see — that  I  was  in  a  damnably  bad  way  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  doubt  Miss  Garland  saw,"  said  Kowland. 

"  Mary  has  said  nothing  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Hudson. 

"  Oh,  she's  a  fine  creature  !  "  Rowland  said. 

"  Have  you  done  anything  that  will  hurt  poor  Mary  ?  " 
Mrs.  Hudson  asked. 

"I  have  only  been  thinking  night  and  day  of  another 
woman  !  " 

Mrs.  Hudson  dropped  helplessly  into  her  seat  again. 
"  Oh,  dear,  dear,  hadn't  we  better  go  home  1  " 

"  Not  to  get  out  of  her  way  !  "  Roderick  said.  "  She 
has  started  on  a  career  of  her  own,  and  she  doesn't  care  a 
straw  for  me.  My  head  was  filled  with  her ;  I  could  think 
of  nothing  else  ;  I  would  have  sacrificed  everything  to  her 
— you,  Mary,  Mallet,  my  work,  my  fortune,  my  future,  my 
honour  !  I  was  in  a  fine  state,  eh  ?  I  don't  pretend  to  be 
giving  you  good  news ;  but  I  am  telling  the  simple,  literal 
truth,  so  that  you  may  know  why  I  have  gone  to  the  dogs. 
She  pretended  to  care  greatly  for  all  this,  and  to  be  willing 
to  make  any  sacrifice  in  return ;  she  had  a  magnificent 
chance,  for  she  was  being  forced  into  a  mercenary  marriage 
with  a  man  she  detested.  She  led  me  to  believe  that  she 
M'ould  send  her  prince  about  his  business  and  keep  herself 
free  and  sacred  and  pure  for  me.  This  was  a  great  honour, 
and  you  may  believe  that  I  valued  it.  It  turned  my  head, 
and  I  lived  only  to  see  my  happiness  come  to  pass.  She  did 
everything  to  encourage  me  to  hope  it  would  ;  everything 
that  her  infernal  coquetry  and  falsity  could  suggest." 

"Oh,  I  say,  this  is  too  much  !  "  Rowland  broke  out. 

"  Do  you  defend  her  1  "  Roderick  cried,  with  a  renewal 
of  his  passion.  "  Do  you  pretend  to  say  that  she  gave  me 
no  hopes  1  "  He  had  been  speaking  with  growing  bitter- 
ness, quite  losing  sight  of  his  mother's  pain  and  bewilder- 
ment in  the  passionate  joy  of  publishing  his  wrongs.  Since 
he  was  hurt  he  must  cry  out  ^  since  he  was  in  pain  he 
must  scatter  his  pain  abroad.  'Of  his  never  thinking  of 
others  save  as  they  figured  in  his  own  game,  this  extra- 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  283 

ordinary  insensibility  to  the  injurious  effects  of  his  eloquence 
was  a  capital  example)  the  more  so  as  the  motive  of  his 
eloquence  was  never  an  appeal  for  sympathy  or  compassion 
— things  to  which  he  seemed  perfectly  indifferent  and  of 
which  he  could  make  no  use.  N  The  great  and  characteristic 
point  with  him  was  the  perfect  exclusiveness  of  his  emotions. 
He  never  saw  himself  as  part  of  a  whole  ;  only  as  the 
clear-cut,  sharp-edged,  isolated  individual,  rejoicing  or 
raging,  as  the  case  might  be,  but  needing  in  any  case 
absolutely  to  affirm  himself.  All  this  to  Rowland  was 
ancient  history,  but  his  perception  of  it  stirred  within 
him  afresh  at  the  sight  of  Koderick's  sense  of  having  been 
betrayed.  That  he,  under  the  circumstances,  was  hardly 
the  person  to  raise  the  cry  of  treason,  was  a  point  to  which 
at  his  leisure  Rowland  was  of  course  capable  of  rendering 
impartial  justice;  but  Roderick's  present  desperation  was 
so  peremptory  that  it  imposed  itself  on  one's  sympathies. 
"  Do  you  pretend  to  say,"  he  went  on,  "  that  she  didn't 
lead  me  along  to  the  very  edge  of  fulfilment  and  stupefy 
me  with  all  that  she  suffered  me  to  believe,  all. that  she 
solemnly  promised  %  It  amused  her  to  do  it,  and  she  knew 
perfectly  well  what  she  really  meant.  She  never  meant  to 
be  sincere  ;  she  never  dreamed  she  could  be.  She's  a 
ravenous  flirt,  and  why  a  flirt  is  a  flirt  is  more  than  I  can 
tell  you.  1  can't  understand  playing  with  those  matters  ; 
for  me  they  are  serious,  whether  I  take  them  up  or  lay 
them  down.  I  don't  see  what's  in  your  head,  Rowland, 
to  attempt  to  defend  that  woman ;  you  were  the  first  to 
cry  out  against  her !  You  told  me  she  was  dangerous,  and 
I  pooh-poohed  you.  You  were  right ;  you  are  always 
right.  She  is  as  cold  and  false  and  heartless  as  she 
is  beautiful,  and  she  has  sold  her  heartless  beauty  to  the 
highest  bidder.     I  hope  he  knows  what  he  gets  !  " 

"Oh,  my  son,"  cried  Mrs.  Hudson,  plaintively,  "how 
could  you  ever  care  for  such  a  dreadful  creature  %  " 

"  It  would  take  long  to  tell  you,  dear  mother !  " 

Rowland's  lately-deepened  sympathy  and  compassion  for 
Christina  was  still  throbbing  in  his  mind,  and  he  felt 
that,  in  loyalty  to  it,  he  must  say  a  word  for  her.  "  You 
believed  in  her  too  much  at  first,"  he  declared,  "and  you 
believe  in  her  too  little  now." 

Roderick  looked  at  him  with  eyes  almost  lurid.     "  She's 


284  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

an  angel  then  after  all  ? — that's  what  yon  want  to  prove  !  " 
ho  cried.  "  That's  consoling  for  me  who  have  lost  her  ! 
You  are  always  right  I  say ;  but  my  dear  fellow,  in  mercy 
be  wrong  for  once  !  " 

"  Oh  yes,  Mr.  Mallet,  be  merciful !  "  said  Mrs.  Hudson 
in  a  tone  which  for  all  its  gentleness  made  Rowland  stare. 
The  poor  fellow's  stare  covered  a  great  deal  of  concentrated 
wonder  and  apprehension — a  presentiment  of  what  a  small, 
sweet,  feeble,  elderly  lady  might  be  capable  of  in  the  way 
of  suddenly  generated  animosity.  There  was  no  space 
in  Mrs.  Hudson's  tiny  maternal  mind  for  complications  of 
feeling,  and  one  emotion  existed  only  by  turning  another 
over  tiat  and  perching  on  top  of  it.  She  was  evidently  not 
following  Koderick  at  all  in  his  dusky  aberrations.  Sitting 
■without,  in  dismay,  she  only  saw  that  all  was  darkness 
and  trouble,  and  as  Roderick's  glory  had  now  quite  out- 
stripped her  powers  of  imagination  and  lifted  him  beyond 
her  jurisdiction,  so  that  he  had  become  a  thing  too  precious 
and  sacred  for  blame,  she  found  it  infinitely  comfortable 
to  lay  the  burden  of  their  common  affliction  upon  Rowlands 
broad  shoulders.  Had  he  not  promised  to  make  them  all 
rich  and  happy  ?  And  this  was  the  end  of  it !  Rowland 
felt  as  if  his  trials  were  only  beginning.  "  Hadn't  you 
better  forget  all  this,  my  dear?"  Mrs.  Hudson  said  to 
her  son.  "  Hadn't  you  better  just  quietly  attend  to  your 
work  1 " 

*'  Work,  madam  1  "  cried  Roderick.  "  My  work's  over. 
I  can't  work — I  haven't  worked  all  winter.  If  I  were  fit 
for  anything,  this  tremendous  slap  in  the  face  would  have 
been  just  the  thing  to  cure  me  of  my  apathy.  But  there^s 
a  perfect  vacuum  here !  "  And  he  tapped  his  forehead. 
"  It's  bigger  than  ever ;  it  grows  bigger  every  hour  !  " 

"  I  am  sure  you  have  made  a  beautiful  likeness  of  your 
poor  little  mother,"  said  Mrs.  Hudson  coaxingly. 

"  I  had  done  nothing  before,  and  I  have  done  nothing 
since  !  I  quarrelled  with  an  excellent  man  the  other  day 
from  mere  exasperation  of  my  nerves,  and  threw  away  five 
thousand  dollars  !  " 

"  Threw  away — five  thousand  dollars  !  "  Roderick  had 
been  wandering  among  formidable  abstractions  and  allu- 
sions too  dark  to  penetrate.  But  here  was  a  concrete  fact, 
lucidly  stated,  and  poor  Mrs.  Hudson  for  a  moment  looked 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  285 

it  in  the  face.  She  repeated  her  son's  words  a  third  time 
with  a  gasping  murmur  and  then  suddenly  she  burst  into 
tears.  Roderick  went  to  her,  sat  down  beside  her,  put  his 
arm  round  her,  fixed  his  eyes  coldly  on  the  floor  and  waited 
for  her  to  weep  herself  out.  She  leaned  her  head  on  his 
shoulder  and  sobbed  broken-heartedly.  She  said  not  a 
word,  she  made  no  attempt  to  scold  ;  but  the  desolation 
of  her  tears  was  overwhelming.  It  lasted  some  time — too 
long  for  Rowland's  courage.  He  had  stood  silent,  wishing 
simply  to  appear  very  respectful ;  but  the  elation  that  was 
mentioned  a  while  since  had  utterly  ebbed  and  he  found 
his  situation  intolerable.  He  was  reduced  to  the  vulgar 
expedient  of  leaving  the  room. 

The  next  day,  while  he  was  at  home,  the  servant  brought 
him  the  card  of  a  visitor.  He  read  with  surprise  the  name 
of  Mrs.  Hudson  and  hurried  forward  to  meet  her.  He 
found  her  in  his  sitting-room,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her 
son  and  looking  very  pale,  her  eyes  red  with  weeping  and 
her  lips  tightly  compressed.  Her  advent  puzzled  him,  and 
it  was  not  for  some  time  that  he  began  to  understand  the 
motive  of  it.  Roderick's  countenance  threw  no  light  upon 
it ;  but  Roderick's  luminous  visage  had  never  had  any 
power  of  projecting  its  radiance.  He  had  not  been  in 
Rowland's  rooms  for  several  weeks,  and  he  immediately 
began  to  look  at  those  of  his  own  works  that  adorned 
them.  He  gave  himself  up  to  independent  contemplation. 
Mrs.  Hudson  had  evidently  armed  herself  with  dignity, 
and  so  far  as  she  might  she  meant  to  be  impressive.  Her 
success  however  may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that  Row- 
land's whole  attention  centred  in  the  fear  of  seeing  her 
begin  to  weep.  She  told  him  that  she  had  come  to  him 
for  practical  advice  ;  she  took  leave  to  remind  him  that 
she  was  a  stranger  in  the  land.  Where  were  they  to  go, 
please  ?  What  where  they  to  do  ?  Rowland  glanced  at 
Roderick,  but  Roderick  had  his  back  turned  and  with  his 
head  on  one  side,  like  a  tourist  in  a  church,  was  gazing  at 
his  splendid  '  Adam.' 

"  Roderick  says  he  doesn't  know,  he  doesn't  care,"  Mrs. 
Hudson  said  ;  "  he  leaves  it  entirely  to  you." 

Many  another  man,  in  Rowland's  place,  would  have 
greeted  this  information  with  an  irate  and  sarcastic  laugh, 
and  told  his  visitors  that  he  thanked  them  infinitely  for 


286  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

their  confidence,  but  that  really  as  things  stood  now  they 
must  settle  these  little  matters  between  themselves  ;  many 
another  man  might  have  so  comjjorted  himself,  even  if, 
like  Kowland,  he  had  been  in  love  with  Mary  (rarland 
and  pressingly  conscious  that  her  destiny  was  also  part 
of  the  question.  But  Rowland  swallowed  all  hilarity  and 
all  sarcasm,  and  entered  into  Mrs.  Hudson's  dilemma.  His 
wits,  however,  were  but  indifferently  at  his  command  ;  they 
were  dulled  by  his  sense  of  the  singular  change  that  had 
taken  place  in  the  attitude  of  this  bewildered  woman.  Her 
visit  was  evidently  intended  as  a  formal  reminder  of  for- 
gotten vows.  Mrs.  Hudson  was  doubtless  too  sincerely 
humble  a  person  to  suppose  that  if  he  had  had  the  wicked 
levity  to  break  faith  with  her,  her  imponderable  presence 
would  operate  as  a  chastisement.  But  by  some  diminutive 
logical  process  of  her  own  she  had  convinced  herself  that 
she  had  been  weakly  trustful,  and  that  she  had  suffered 
Rowland  to  think  too  meanly  not  only  of  her  understanding 
but  of  her  social  consequence.  A  visit  in  her  best  gown 
would  have  an  admonitory  effect  as  regards  both  of  these 
attributes ;  it  would  cancel  some  favours  received  and 
show  him  that  she  was  not  incapable  of  grasping  the 
theory,  at  least,  of  retribution  !  These  were  the  reflections 
of  a  very  shy  woman,  who,  determining  for  once  in  her 
life  to  hold  up  her  head,  was  actually  flying  it  like  a  kite. 

"  You  know  we  have  very  little  money  to  spend,"  she 
said  as  Rowland  remained  silent.  "  Roderick  tells  me 
that  he  has  debts  and  nothing  at  all  to  pay  them  with. 
He  says  I  must  write  to  Mr.  Striker  to  sell  my  house  for 
what  it  will  bring  and  send  me  out  the  money.  When 
the  money  comes  I  must  give  it  to  him.  I  am  sure  I  don't 
know  ;  I  never  heard  of  anything  so  dreadful !  My  house 
is  all  I  have.  But  that  is  all  Roderick  will  say.  We  must 
be  very  economical." 

Before  this  speech  was  finished  Mrs.  Hudson's  voice  had 
begun  to  quaver  softly,  and  her  face,  which  had  no  capacity 
for  the  expression  of  a  privileged  consciousness,  to  look  as 
humbly  appealing  as  before.  Rowland  turned  to  Roderick 
and  spoke  like  a  schoolmaster.  "  Come  away  from  those 
statues  and  sit  down  here  and  listen  to  me  !  " 

Roderick  started,  but  obeyed  with  the  most  graceful 
docility,  choosing  a  stiff-backed  antique  chair. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  287 

"  What  do  you  propose  to  your  mother  to  do  ?  "  Rowland 
asked. 

"Propose]"  said  Roderick  absently.  "Oh,  I  propose 
nothing." 

The  tone,  the  glance,  the  gesture  with  which  this  was 
said  were  horribly  irritating,  and  for  an  instant  an  impre- 
cation rose  to  Rowland's  lips.  But  he  had  checked  it,  and 
he  was  afterwards  glad  he  had  done  so.  "  You  must  do 
something,"  he  said.     "  Choose,  select,  decide  !  " 

"  My  dear  Rowland,  how  you  talk  !  "  Roderick  cried. 
"  The  very  point  of  the  matter  is  that  I  can't  do  anything. 
I  will  do  as  I'm  told,  but  I  don't  call  that  doing.  We 
must  leave  Rome,  I  suppose,  though  I  don't  see  why.  We 
have  got  no  money,  and  you  have  to  pay  money  on  the 
railroads." 

Mrs.  Hudson  surreptitiously  wrung  her  hands.  "  Listen 
to  him,  please  ! "  she  cried.  "  Not  leave  Rome,  when  we 
have  staid  here  later  than  any  respectable  family  ever  did 
before  !  It's  this  dreadful  place  that  has  made  us  so 
unhappy.     Roderick's  so  fearfully  relaxed  !  " 

"It's  very  true  that  I'm  relaxed!"  said  Roderick 
serenely.  "  If  I  had  not  come  to  Rome  I  shouldn't  have 
risen,  and  if  I  had  not  risen  I  shouldn't  have  fallen." 

"  Fallen — fallen  !  "  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson.  "  Just 
hear  him  !  " 

"I  will  do  anything  you  say,  Rowland,"  Roderick 
added.  "  I  will  do  anything  you  want.  I  have  not  been 
unkind  to  my  mother — have  I,  mother'?  I  was  unkind 
yesterday,  without  meaning  it ;  for  after  all,  you  know,  all 
that  had  to  be  said.  Murder  will  out,  and  my  little 
troubles  can't  be  hidden.  But  we  talked  it  over  and 
made  it  up,  didn't  we?  It  seemed  to  me  we  did.  Let 
Rowland  decide  it,  mother ;  whatever  he  suggests  will  be 
the  right  thing."  And  Roderick,  who  had  hardly  removed 
his  eyes  from  his  statue,  got  up  again  and  went  back  to 
look  at  it. 

Mrs.  Hudson  fixed  her  eyes  upon  the  floor  in  silence. 
There  was  not  a  trace  in  Roderick's  face  or  in  his  voice 
of  the  bitterness  of  his  emotion  of  the  day  before  and  not 
a  hint  of  his  having  the  lightest  weight  upon  his  con- 
science. He  looked  at  Rowland  with  his  frank  and  radiant 
eye  as  if    there  had  never  been   a  difference  of    opinion 


288  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

between  them  ;   as  if  each  had  ever  been  for  both,  unalter- 
ably, and  both  for  each. 

Kowland  had  received  a  few  days  before  a  letter  from 
a  lady  of  his  acquaintance,  a  worthy  Scotswoman  domiciled 
in  a  villa  upon  one  of  the  olive-covered  hills  near  Florence. 
She  held  her  apartments  in  the  villa  upon  a  long  lease,  and 
she  enjoyed  for  a  sum  not  worth  mentioning  the  possession 
of  an  extraordinary  number  of  noble,  stone-fioored  rooms, 
with  ceilings  vaulted  and  frescoed,  and  barred  windows 
commanding  the  loveliest  view  in  the  world.  She  was  a 
needy  and  thrifty  spinster,  who  never  hesitated  to  declare 
that  the  lovely  view  w^as  all  very  well,  but  that  for  her 
own  part  she  lived  in  the  villa  for  cheapness,  and  that  if 
she  had  a  clear  three  hundred  pounds  a  year  she  would  go 
and  really  enjoy  life  near  her  sister,  a  baronet's  lady  at 
Glasgow.  She  was  now  proposing  to  make  a  visit  to  that 
delectable  city,  and  she  desired  to  turn  an  honest  penny 
by  sub-letting  for  a  few  weeks  her  historic  Italian  chambers. 
The  terms  on  which  she  occupied  them  enabled  her  to  ask 
a  rent  almost  jocosely  small,  and  she  begged  Rowland  to 
do  what  she  called  a  little  genteel  advertising  for  her. 
Would  he  say  a  good  word  for  her  rooms  to  his  numerous 
friends  in  Rome  ?  He  said  a  good  word  for  them  now  to 
Mrs.  Hudson,  and  told  her  in  dollars  and  cents  how  cheap 
a  summer's  lodging  she  might  secure.  He  dwelt  upon  the 
fact  that  she  would  strike  a  truce  with  tahles-dliote  and 
have  a  cook  of  her  own,  amenable  possibly  to  instruction 
in  the  NorthamjDton  mysteries.  He  had  touched  a  tender 
chord  ;  Mrs.  Hudson  became  almost  cheerful.  Her  senti- 
ments upon  the  tahle-d'hote  system  and  upon  foreign 
household  habits  generally  were  remarkable,  and  if  we 
had  space  for  it  would  repay  analysis ;  and  the  idea  of 
reclaiming  a  lost  soul  to  culinary  orthodoxy  quite  lightened 
the  burden  of  her  depression.  While  Rowland  set  forth 
his  case  Roderick  slowly  walked  through  the  rooms  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets.  Rowland  waited  for  him  to 
manifest  an  interest  in  their  discussion,  but  he  had  no 
attention  for  his  friend's  pictures.  Rowland  was- a  practical 
man  ;  he  possessed  conspicuously  what  is  called  the  sense 
of  detail.  He  entered  into  Mrs.  Hudson's  position  minutely, 
and  told  her  exactly  why  it  seemed  good  that  she  should 
remove  immediately  to  the  Florentine  villa.     She  received 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  289 

his  advice  with  great  frigidity,  looking  hard  at  the  floor 
and  sighing,  like  a  person  well  on  her  guard  against  an 
optimism  which  might  be  but  an  escape  from  penalties. 
But  she  had  nothing  better  to  propose,  and  Rowland  re- 
ceived her  permission  to  write  to  his  friend  that  she  would 
take  the  rooms. 

Roderick  assented  to  this  decision  without  either  sighs 
or  smiles.  "  A  Florentine  villa  is  a  good  thing  1  "  he  said. 
*'  I  am  at  your  service." 

"  I  am  sure  I  hope  you  will  recover  your  tone  there," 
moaned  his  mother,  gathering  her  shawl  together. 

Roderick  laid  one  hand  on  her  arm  and  with  the  other 
pointed  to  Rowland's  statues.  "  This  is  my  tone  just  now. 
Once  upon  a  time  I  did  those  things,  and  they  are  devilish 
good  !  " 

Mrs.  Hudson  gazed  at  them  vaguely,  and  Rowland  said, 
"  That's  a  capital  tone  !  " 

"  They  are  atrociously  good  !  "  said  Roderick. 

Rowland  solemnly  shrugged  his  shoulders  ;  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  had  nothing  more  to  say.  But  as  the  others 
were  going,  a  last  light  pulsation  of  the  sense  of  undis- 
charged duty  led  him  to  address  to  Roderick  a  few  words 
of  parting  advice.  "  You  will  iind  the  Villa  Pandolfini 
very  delightful,  very  comfortable,"  he  said.  "  You  ought 
to  be  very  contented  there.  Whether  you  work  or  whether 
you  do  what  you  are  doing  now,  it's  a  place  for  an  artist 
to  be  happy  in.     I  hope  you  will  work." 

"  I  hope  I  may !  "  said  Roderick,  with  a  magnificent 
smile. 

"  When  we  meet  again  try  and  have  something  to  show 
me." 

"  When  we  meet  again  ?  Where  the  deuce  are  you 
going  "i  "  Roderick  demanded. 

"  Oh,  I  hardly  know  ;  over  the  Alps." 

"  Over  the  Alps  !     You  are  going  to  leave  me  ?  " 

Rowland  had  certainly  meant  to  leave  him,  but  his 
resolution  was  not  proof  against  this  single  ejaculation. 
He  glanced  at  Mrs.  Hudson,  and  saw  that  her  eyebrows 
were  lifted  and  her  lips  parted  in  delicate  reprehension. 
She  seemed  to  accuse  him  of  a  craven  shirking  of  trouble, 
to  demand  of  him  to  repair  his  cruel  havoc  in  her  life  by 
a  solemn  renewal  of    zeal.     But    Roderick's    expectations 

T 


290  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

were  the  oddest !  Such  as  they  were,  Rowland  asked 
himself  why  he  shouldn't  make  a  bargain  with  them. 
"  You  want  me  to  go  with  you  ]  "  he  asked. 

"If  you  don't  go,  I  won't — that's  all!  How  in  the 
world  shall  I  get  through  the  next   six    months  without 

your' 

"  How  will  you  get  through  them  with  mel  That's  the 
question." 

"  I  don't  pretend  to  say ;  the  future  is  a  dead  blank. 
But  without  you  it's  not  a  blank — it's  certain  damna- 
tion !  " 

"  Mercy,  mercy  !  "  murmured  ]Mrs.  Hudson. 
Rowland  made  an  eii'ort  to  turn  this  precious  symptom 
of  a  positive  desire  to  account.     *'  If  I  go  with  you,  will 
you  try  to  work  1 " 

Roderick  up  to  this  moment  had  been  looking  as  unper- 
turbed as  if  the  deep  agitation  of  the  day  before  were  a 
thing  of  the  remote  past.  But  at  these  words  his  face 
changed  formidabl}^ ;  he  flushed  and  scowled  and  all  his 
passion  returned.  '*  Try  to  work  !  "  he  cried.  "  Try — try  ! 
work — work  !  In  God's  name  don't  talk  that  way,  or 
you'll  drive  me  mad  !  Do  you  suppose  I  am  trying  not  to 
work  1  Do  you  suppose  I  stand  rotting  here  for  the  fun 
of  it  1  Don't  you  suppose  I  would  try  to  work  for  myself 
before  I  tried  for  you '? " 

"  Mr.  Mallet,"  cried  Mrs.  Hudson  piteously,  "  will  you 
leave  me  alone  with  this  ?  " 

Rowland  turned  to  Her  and  informed  her  gently  that  he 
would  go  with  her  to  Florence.  After  he  had  taken  this 
engagement  he  thought  not  at  all  of  the  pain  of  his  position 
as  mediator  between  the  mother's  resentful  grief  and  the 
son's  incurable  weakness;  he  drank  deep,  only,  of  the 
satisfaction  of  not  separating  from  Mary  Garland.  If  the 
future  was  a  blank  to  Roderick  it  was  hardly  less  so  to 
himself.  He  had  at  moments  a  sharp  foreboding  of  im- 
pending calamity.  He  paid  it  no  especial  deference,  but 
it  made  him  feel  indisposed  to  take  the  future  into  his 
account.  On  his  going  to  take  leave  of  Madame  Grandoni, 
this  lady  asked  when  he  would  come  back  to  Rome,  and 
he  answered  that  he  would  return  either  never  or  for  ever. 
When  she  asked  him  what  he  meant,  he  said  he  really 
couldn't    tell    her,    and    he    parted    from    her   with    much 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  291 

genuine  emotion  ;  the  more  so  doubtless  tliat  she  blessed 
him  in  a  quite  loving  maternal  fashion  and  told  him 
she  honestly  believed  him  to  be  the  best  fellow  in.  the 
world. 


XXII. 

The  Villa  Pandolfini  stood  directly  upon  a  small  grass- 
grown  piazza,  on  the  top  of  a  hill  which  sloped  straight 
from  one  of  the  gates  of  Florence.  It  offered  to  the  outer 
world  a  long  rather  low  facade,  coloured  a  dull,  dark 
yellow  and  pierced  with  windows  of  various  sizes,  no  one  of 
which  save  those  on  the  ground  floor  was  on  the  same  level 
with  any  other.  Within,  it  had  a  great  cool  grey  cortile, 
with  high  light  arches  around  it,  heavily-corniced  doors  of 
majestic  altitude  opening  out  of  it,  and  a  beautiful  mediaeval 
well  on  one  side  of  it.  Mrs.  Hudson's  rooms  opened  into 
a  small  garden  supported  on  immense  substructions  which 
were  planted  on  the  farther  side  of  the  hill  as  it  sloped 
steeply  away.  This  garden  was  a  charming  place.  Its 
southern  wall  was  curtained  with  a  screen  of  orange- 
blossoms,  a  dozen  fig-trees  here  and  there  offered  you  their 
large-leaved  shade,  and  over  the  low  parapet  the  soft  grave 
Tuscan  la^ndscape  kept  you  company.  The  rooms  themselves 
were  as  high  as  chapels  and  as  cool  as  royal  sepulchres. 
Silence,  peace  and  security  seemed  to  abide  in  the  ancient^ 
house  and  make  it  an  ideal  refuge  for  unsuccessful  lives. 
Mrs.  Hudson  had  a  stunted  brown-faced  Maddalena  who 
wore  a  crimson  handkerchief  passed  over  her  coarse  black 
locks  and  tied  under  her  sharp  pertinacious  chin,  and  a 
smile  which  was  as  brilliant  as  a  prolonged  flash  of  light- 
ning. She  smiled  at  everything  in  life,  especially  the 
things  that  displeased  her  and  that  kept  her  talent  for 
mendacity  in  healthy  exercise.  A  glance,  a  word,  a  motion 
was  sufficient  to  make  her  show  her  teeth  at  you  like  a 
cheerful  she-wolf.  This  inexpugnable  smile  constituted 
her  whole  vocabulary  in  her  dealings  with  her  melancholy 
mistress    to  whom  she  had   been  bequeathed  by  the  late 

T  2 


292  RODERICK  IIUOSON. 

occupant  of  the  apartment  :ind  who,  to  Rowland's  satis- 
faction, promised  to  be  diverted  from  lier  maternal  sorrows 
by  the  still  deeper  perplexities  of  Maddalena's  theory  of 
roasting,  sweeping  and  bed- making. 

Rowland  took  rooms  at  a  villa  a  trifle  nearer  Florence, 
whence  in  the  summer  mornings  he  had  live  minutes'  walk 
in  the  sharp  black  shadow-strip  projected  by  winding 
flower-topped  walls  to  join  his  friends.  The  life  at  the 
Villa  Pandolfini,  when  it  had  fairly  defined  itself,  was 
tranquil  and  monotonous,  but  it  might  have  borrowed 
from  exquisite  circumstance  an  absorbing  charm.  If  a 
sensible  shadow  rested  updn  it,  this  was  because  it  had  an 
inherent  vice  ;  it  feigned  a  light-heartedness  which  it  very 
scantily  felt.  Roderick  had  lost  no  time  in  giving  the 
full  measure  of  his  uncompromising  chagrin,  and  as  he 
was  the  central  figure  of  the  little  group,  as  he  held  its 
heart-strings  all  in  his  own  hand,  it  reflected  faithfully  the 
eclipse  of  his  genius.  No  one  had  ventured  upon  the  cheerful 
commonplace  of  saying  that  the  change  of  air  and  of  scene 
would  restore  his  spirits  ;  this  would  have  had,  under  the 
circumstances,  altogether  too  silly  a  sound.  The  change  in 
question  had  done  nothing  of  the  sort,  and  his  companions 
had  at  least  the  comfort  of  their  perspicacity.  An  essential 
spring  had  dried  up  within  him,  and  there  was  no  visible 
spiritual  law  for  making  it  flow  again.  He  was  rarely 
violent,  he  expressed  little  of  the  irritation  and  ennui  that 
he  must  have  constantly  felt ;  it  was  as  if  he  believed  that 
a  spiritual  miracle  for  his  redemption  was  just  barely  pos- 
sible and  was  therefore  worth  waiting  for.  The  most  that 
one  could  do  however  was  to  wait  grimly  and  doggedly, 
suppressing  an  imprecation  as  from  time  to  time  one  looked 
at  one's  watch.  An  attitude  of  positive  urbanity  towards 
life  was  not  to  be  expected  ;  it  was  doing  one's  duty  to 
hold  one's  tongue  and  keep  one's  hands  off  one's  own  wind- 
pipe and  other  people's.  Roderick  had  long  silences,  tits  of 
profound  lethargy,  almost  of  stupefaction.  He  used  to  sit 
in  the  garden  by  the  hour,  with  his  head  thrown  back,  his 
legs  outstretched,  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  his  eyes 
fastened  upon  the  blinding  summer  sky.  He  would  gather 
a  dozen  books  about  him,  tumble  them  out  on  the  ground, 
take  one  into  his  lap,  and  leixve  it  with  the  pages  unturned. 
These  moods  would  alternate  with  hours  of  extreme  restless- 


RODEEICK  HUDSON.  293 

ness  during  which  he  mysteriously  absented  himself.  He 
bore  the  heat  of  the  Italian  summer  like  a  salamander,  and 
used  to  start  off  at  high  noon  for -long  walks  over  the  hills. 
He  often  went  down  into  Florence,  rambled  through  the 
close  dim  streets,  and  lounged  away  mornings  in  the 
churches  and  galleries.  On  many  of  these  occasions  Row- 
land bore  him  company,  for  they  were  the  times  when  he 
was  most  like  his  former  self.  Before  Michael  Angelo's 
statues  and  the  pictures  of  the  early  Tuscans  he  quite 
forgot  his  own  infelicities  and  picked  up  the  thread  of  his 
old  aesthetic  loquacity.  He  found  in  Florence  some  of  his 
Roman  friends  and  went  down  in  the  evening  to  meet 
them.  More  than  once  he  asked  Mary  Garland  to  go  with 
him  into  the  town,  where  he  showed  her  the  things  he 
most  cared  for.  He  had  some  sculptor's  clay  brought  up 
to  the  villa  and  deposited  in  a  room  suitable  for  his  work  ; 
but  when  this  had  been  done  he  turned  the  key  in  the 
door  and  the  clay  never  was  touched.  His  eye  was  heavy 
and  his  hand  cold,  and  his  mother  put  up  a  secret  prayer 
that  he  might  be  induced  to  see  a  doctor.  But  on  a  certain 
occasion,  when  her  prayer  became  articulate,  he  had  a  great 
outburst  of  anger,  and  begged  her  to  know  once  for  all 
that  his  health  was  better  than  it  had  ever  been.  On  the 
whole,  and  most  of  the  time,  he  was  a  sad  spectacle  ;  he 
looked  so  hopelessly  idle.  If  he  was  not  querulous  and 
bitter  it  was  because  he  had  taken  an  extraordinary  vow 
not  to  be  ;  a  vow  heroic  for  him,  a  vow  which  those  who 
knew  him  well  had  the  tenderness  to  appreciate.  Talking 
with  him  was  like  skating  on  thin  ice,  and  his  com- 
panions had  a  constant  mental  vision  of  spots  designated 
*'  dangerous." 

This  was  a  difficult  time  for  Rowland  ;  he  said  to  himself 
that  he  would  endure  it  to  the  end,  but  that  he  must  never 
try  it  again.  Mrs.  Hudson  divided  her  time  between  look- 
ing askance  at  her  son,  with  her  hands  tightly  clasped 
about  her  pocket-handkerchief,  as  if  she  were  wringing  it 
dry  of  the  last  hour's  tears,  and  turning  her  eyes  much 
more  directly  upon  Rowland,  in  the  mutest,  the  feeblest, 
the  most  intolerable  reproachfulness.  She  never  phrased 
her  accusations,  but  he  felt  that  in  the  unillumined  void 
of  the  poor  lady's  mind  they  loomed  up  like  vaguely-out- 
lined monsters.     Her  demeanour  caused    him  the  acutest 


294  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

suffering,  and  if  at  the  outset  of  his  experiment  he  had 
seen,  how  dimly  soever,  one  of  those  plaintive  eye-beams 
in  the  opposite  scale,  the  brilliancy  of  Koderick's  promises 
would  have  counted  for  little.  These  punctual  messengers 
made  their  way  to  the  softest  spot  in  his  conscience  and 
kept  it  chronically  aching.  If  Mrs.  Hudson  had  been 
voluble  and  vulgar  he  would  have  borne  even  a  less  valid 
persecution  with  greater  fortitude.  But  somehow,  neat 
and  noiseless  and  dismally  lady-like  as  she  sat  there,  keep- 
in  t^  her  grievance  green  with  her  soft- dropping  tears,  her 
displeasure  conveyed  an  overwhelming  imputation  of  bru- 
tality. He  felt  like  .a  reckless  trustee  who  has  speculated 
with  the  widow's  mite,  and  is  haunted  with  the  retlection  of 
ruin  that  he  sees  in  her  tearful  eyes.  He  did  everything  con- 
ceivable to  be  polite  to  Mrs.  Hudson  and  to  treat  her  with 
distinguished  deference.  Perhaps  his  exasperated  nerves 
made  him  overshoot  the  mark,  and  rendered  his  civilities 
too  grimly  perfunctory.  She  seemed  capable  of  believing 
that  he  was  trying  to  make  a  fool  of  her  ;  she  would  have 
thought  him  cruelly  recreant  if  he  had  suddenly  turned 
his  back,  and  yet  she  gave  him  no  visible  credit  for  his 
constancy.  Women  are  said  by  some  authorities  to  be 
cruel ;  I  know  not  how  true  this  is,  but  it  may  at  least 
be  pertinent  to  remark  that  Mrs.  Hudson  was  intensely 
feminine.  It  often  seemed  to  Rowland  that  he  had  too 
decidedly  forfeited  his  freedom,  and  that  there  w^as  some- 
thing grotesque  in  a  man  of  his  age  being  put  into  a 
corner. 

But  Mary  Garland  had  helped  him  before,  and  she 
helped  him  now — helped  him  not  less  than  he  had  assured 
himself  she  would  when  he  found  himself  drifting  to 
Florence.  Yet  her  help  was  rendered  as  unconsciously 
and  indirectly  as  before  ;  he  had  made  no  apologies  and 
she  had  offered  to  remit  no  penalties.  After  that  distress- 
ing scene  in  Rome  which  had  immediately  preceded  their 
departure,  it  was  of  course  impossible  that  there  should 
not  be  on  the  girl's  part  some  frankness  of  allusion  to 
Roderick's  sad  condition.  She  had  been  present,  the 
reader  will  remember,  during  only  half  of  his  uncom- 
promising confession  of  his  errors,  and  Rowland  had  not 
seen  her  confronted  with  any  absolute  proof  of  Rowland's 
passion  for  Christina  Light.     But  he  knew  that  she  knew  far 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  295 

too  much  for  her  happiness  ;  Roderick  had  told  him,  shortly 
after  their  settlement  at  the  Villa  Paudoliini,  that  he  had 
had  a  "  tremendous  talk  "  with  his  cousin.  Rowland  asked 
no  questions  about  it ;  he  preferred  not  to  know  what  had 
passed  between  them.  If  their  interview  had  been  purely 
painful  he  wished  to  ignore  it  for  Mary's  sake;  and  if  it 
had  sown  the  seeds  of  reconciliation  he  wished  to  close  his 
eyes  to  it  for  his  own — for  the  sake  of  that  unshaped  idea, 
for  ever  dismissed  and  yet  for  ever  present,  which  hovered 
in  the  background  of  his  consciousness  with  a  hanging 
head  and  yet  an  unshamed  glance,  and  whose  lightest 
motions  were  an  effectual  bribe  to  patience.  Had  there 
been  a  formal  rupture  I  Rowland  wondered,  yet  without 
asking ;  and  he  thought  it  very  possible  that  if  there  had 
not  been,  it  was  because  Roderick  had  so  completely  bidden 
farewell  to  forms.  It  hardly  mattered,  however,  for  if 
Mary  of  her  own  movement  had  withdrawn  her  hand,  her 
heart  had  by  no  means  recovered  its  liberty.  It  was  very 
certain  to  Rowland's  mind  that  if  she  had  given  him  up 
she  had  by  no  means  ceased  to  care  for  him  passionately, 
and  that  to  exhaust  her  charity  for  his  weaknesses  Roderick 
would  have  as  the  phrase  is  a  long  row  to  hoe.  She  spoke 
of  Roderick  as  she  might  have  done  of  a  person  suffering 
from  a  serious  malady  which  demanded  much  tenderness  ; 
but  if  Rowland  had  found  it  possible  to  accuse  her  of 
dishonesty  he  would  have  said  now  that  she  believed 
appreciably  less  than  she  pretended  in  her  victim's  being 
an  involuntary  patient.  There  are  women  whose  love  is 
care-taking  and  patronising,  and  who  attach  themselves  to 
those  persons  of  the  other  sex  in  whom  the  manly  grain 
is  soft  and  submissive.  It  did  not  in  the  least  please 
Rowland  to  believe  that  Mary  Garland  was  one  of  these, 
for  he  held  that  such  women  were  only  males  in  petticoats, 
and  he  was  convinced  that  this  young  lady's  nature  was 
typically  girlish.  That  she  was  a  very  different  woman 
from  Christina  Light  did  not  at  all  prove  that  she  was  a 
less  considerable  one,  and  if  the  Princess  Casamassima  had 
gone  up  into  a  high  place  to  publish  her  disrelish  of  a 
man  who  lacked  the  virile  will,  it  was  very  certain  that 
Mary  was  not  a  person  to  put  up  at  any  point  with  what 
might  be  called  the  Princess's  leavings.  It  was  Christina's 
constant  practice  to  remind  you  of  the  complexity  of  her 


296  KODKKICK  HUDSON. 

character,  of  tlie  sulnlety  of  her  luiiid,  of  her  troublous 
faculty  of  seeing  everything  in  a  dozen  dillerent  lights. 
Mary  had  never  pretended  not  to  be  simple  ;  but  Rowland 
had  a  theory  tliat  she  had  really  a  more  multitudinous 
sense  of  human  things,  a  more  delicate  imagination  and 
a  finer  instinct  of  character.  She  did  you  the  honours  of 
her  mind  with  a  grace  far  less  regal,  but  was  not  that 
faculty  of  quite  as  remarkable  a  construction  1  If  in  poor 
Christina's  strangely  commingled  nature  there  was  circle 
within  circle  and  depth  beneath  depth,  it  was  to  be  believed 
that  the  object  of  Kowland's  preference,  though  she  did  not 
amuse  herself  with  dropping  stones  into  her  soul  and  waiting 
to  hear  them  fall,  laid  (juite  as  many  sources  of  spiritual  lite 
under  contribution.  She  had  believed  Koderick  was  a  fine 
fellow  when  she  bade  him  farewell  beneath  the  Northampton 
elms,  and  this  belief,  to  her  young,  strenuous,  concentrated 
imagination,  had  meant  many  things.  If  it  was  to  grow 
cold,  it  would  be  because  disenchantment  had  become  total 
and  won  the  battle  at  each  successive  point. 

Even  in  her  face  and  carriage  she  had  something  of  the 
preoccupied  and  wearied  look  of  a  person  who  is  watching 
at  a  sick-bed;  Rodericks  broken  fortunes,  his  dead  ambi- 
tions were  a  cruel  burden  to  the  heart  of  a  girl  who  had 
believed  that  he  possessed  "  genius,"  and  who  supposed 
that  genius  was  to  one's  spiritual  economy  what  a  large 
bank  account  was  to  one's  domestic.  And  yet  with  Mary 
Rowland  never  tasted,  as  with  Mrs.  Hudson,  of  that  acrid 
under-current — that  impertinent  implication  that  he  had 
defrauded  her  of  happiness.  Was  this  justice  in  the  girl, 
or  was  it  mercy  t  The  answer  would  have  been  difficult, 
for  she  had  almost  let  Rowland  feel  before  leaving  Rome 
that  she  liked  him  well  enough  to  forgive  him  an  injury. 
It  was  partly,  Rowland  fancied,  that  there  were  occasional 
lapses,  deep  and  sweet,  in  her  sense  of  injury.  When  on 
arriving  at  Florence  she  saw  the  place  Rowland  had  brought 
them  to  in  their  trouble,  she  had  given  him  a  look  and  said 
a  few  words  to  him  that  had  seemed  not  only  a  remission 
of  guilt  but  a  positive  reward.  This  happened  in  the 
court  of  the  villa — the  large  grey  quadrangle,  overstretched, 
from  edge  to  edge  of  the  red-tiled  roof,  by  the  deep  Italian 
sky.  Mary  had  felt  on  the  spot  the  sovereign  charm  of 
the  place;    it  was  reflected  in  her    intelligent    eyes,    and 


BODERICK  HUDSON.  297 

Rowland  immediately  accused  himself   of  not  having  done 
the    villa   justice.     Mary   fell    in  love  on    the    spot    with 
Florence,  and  used  to  look  down  wistfully  at  the  towered 
city  from  their  terraced  garden.     Roderick  having  now  no 
pretext  for  not  being  her  cicerone,  Rowland  was  no  longer 
at  liberty,  as  he  had  been  in  Rome,  to  propose  frequent 
excursions  to  her.     Roderick's    own   invitations    however 
were  not  frequent,  and  Rowland  more  than  once  ventured 
to  introduce  her  to  a  gallery  or  a  church.     These  expeditions 
were  not  so  blissful  to  his  sense  as  the  rambles  they  had 
taken    together    in    Rome,    for    his    companion    only    half 
surrendered  herself  to  her  enjoyment,  and  seemed  to  have 
but  a  divided  attention  at  her  command.     Often,  when  she 
had  begun  with  looking  intently  at  a  picture,  her   silence 
after  an  interval  made  him  turn  and  glance  at  her.     He 
usually  found  that  if  she  was  looking  at  the  picture   still 
she    was    not    seeing  it.     Her   eyes    were    fixed,    but    her 
thoughts  were   wandering,  and  an  image  more   vivid  than 
any  "that    Raphael    or  Titian  had   drawn  had    superposed 
itself  upon  the  canvas.      She  asked  fewer  questions   than 
before,  and  seemed  to  have  lost  heart  for  consulting  guide 
books  and    encyclopaedias.     From    time    to    time  however 
she  uttered  a  deep  full  murmur  of  gratification.     Florence 
in  midsummer  was  perfectly  void  of   travellers,  and  the 
dense  little  city  gave  forth  its  aesthetic  aroma  with  a  larger 
frankness,  as  the  nightingale  sings  when  the  listeners  have 
departed.     The    churches    were    deliciously    cool,    but    the 
grey  streets  were   stifling,  and  the  great  dove-tailed  poly- 
gons of  pavement  were  hot  to  the  lingering  tread.     Row- 
land, who  suffered  from  a  high  temperature,  would  have 
found  all  this  uncomfortable  in  solitude  ;  but  Florence  had 
never   charmed    him  so  completely  as  during    these    mid- 
summer   strolls    with    his    preoccupied    companion.       One 
evening  they  had  arranged    to  go  on  the  morrow  to    the 
Academy.      Mary    kept  her  appointment,  but  as  soon  as 
she    appeared    Rowland  saw  that  something    painful    had 
befallen  her.     She  was   doing  her  best  to  look  at  her  ease, 
but  her    face    bore    the    marks    of    tears.       Rowland    told 
her  that  he  was   afraid   she  was  ill,  and  that  if   she  pre- 
ferred to  give  up  the  visit  to  Florence  he  would  submit 
with    what    grace    he    might.      She    hesitated    a    moment, 
and    then    said    she    preferred    to    adhere    to    their    plan. 


298  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  I  am  not  well,"  she  presently  added,  "  but  it's  a  moral 
malady,  and  in  such  cases  1  consider  your  company  an 
assistance." 

"  But  if  I  am  to  be  your  doctor,"  said  Rowland,  *'  you 
must  tell  me  how  your  illness  came  about." 

"  I  can  tell  you  very  little.  It  came  about  with  Mrs. 
Hudson  being  unjust  to  me — for  the  first  time  in  her  life. 
And  now  I  am  already  better  !  " 

I  mention  this  incident  because  it  confirmed  an  impres- 
sion of   Rowland's  from  which  he  had  derived  a  certain 
consolation.     He  knew  that  Mrs.  Hudson  considered  her 
son's  ill-regulated  passion  for  Christina  Light  a  very  regret- 
table affair,  but  he  suspected  that  her  manifest  compassion 
had  been  all    for  Roderick,  and  not  in  the  least  for  her 
companion.     She  was  fond  of  the  young  girl,  but  she  had 
valued  her  primarily  during  the  last  two  years  as  a  kind 
of  assistant  priestess  at  Roderick's  shrine.     Roderick  had 
paid  her  the  compliment  of  asking  her  to  become  his  wife, 
but   that  poor  Mary  had  any  rights  in  consec^uence,  J\lrs. 
Hudson  was  quite  incapable  of  perceiving.     Her  sentiment 
on  the  subject  was  of  course  not  rigidly  formulated,  but  she 
was  unprepared  to  regard  her  companion  in  the  least  as  a 
victim.     Roderick  was  very  unhappy  ;    that  was    enough, 
and  jSIary's  duty  was  to  join  her  patience  and  her  prayers 
to  those  of    a  disinterested  parent.     Roderick    might  fall 
in  love  with  whom  he  pleased  ;  no  doubt  that  women  trained 
in  the  mysterious  Roman  arts  were  only  too  proud  and  too 
happy  to  make  it  easy  for  him ;  and  it  was  very  presuming 
in  a  plain  second  cousin  to  feel  any  personal  resentment. 
Mrs.   Hudson's  philosophy  was  of  too   narrow  a  scope   to 
suggest  that  a  mother  may  forgive  where  a  mistress  cannot, 
and   she  thought  it  a   charge    upon   her    own  mortgaged 
charity  that  Mary  should  not  accommodate  herself  to  the 
position  of  a  handmaid  without  wages.      She  was  ready  to 
hold  her  breath  so  that  Roderick  might  sigh  at  his  ease, 
and  she  was  capable  of  seeing  her  young  kinswoman  gasp 
for    air    without    a    tremor   of    compassion.       Mary    now 
apparently  had  given  some  intimat  on  of    her  belief   that 
*if  constancy  is  the  flower  of  devotion,  reciprocity  is  the 
guarantee  of  constancy,  and  Mrs.  Hudson  had  denounced 
this  as  a  very  arrogant  doctrine.     That  Mary  had  found  it 
hard  to  reason  with  Mrs.  Hudson,  that  she  suflered  deeply 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  299 

from  the  elder  lady's  moral  parsimony,  and  that  in  short 
he  had  companionship  in  misfortune — all  this  made  Row- 
land tind  a  certain  luxury  in  his  discomfort. 

The  party  at  Villa  Pandoltini  used  to  sit  in  the  garden 
in  the  evenings,  which  Rowland  almost  always  spent  with 
them.     Their  entertainment  was  in  the  heavily  perfumed  air, 
in   the    dim,   far  starlight,  in   the   crenelated    tower   of    a 
neighbouring    villa,    which    loomed    vaguely    above    them 
through  the  warm  darkness,  and  in  such  conversation  as 
depressing  reflections  permitted.      Roderick,  clad  always  in 
white,  roamed   about    like  a  restless  ghost,  silent  for  the 
most  part,  but   making  from  time  to  time  a  brief  obser- 
vation   characterised     by    the    most    fantastic    cynicism. 
Roderick's  contributions  to  the  conversation  were  indeed 
always  so  fantastic  that  though  half  the  time  they  wearied 
him   unspeakably  Rowland  made  an  effort   to  treat  them 
humorously.       With    Rowland    alone    Roderick    talked    a 
great  deal  more — often  about  the  things  that  had  formerly 
interested  him.     He  talked  as  well  as  ever  or  even  better ; 
but  his  talk  always  ended  in  a  torrent  of  groans  and  curses. 
When  this  current  set  in  Rowland  straightway  turned  his 
back  and  stopped   his  ears,  and   Roderick  now  witnessed 
these    movements  with    perfect    indifference.      When    the 
latter  was   absent   from  the   star-lit   circle  in  the  garden, 
as  often  happened,  Rowland  knew  nothing  of  his  where- 
abouts;  he  supposed  him  to  be  in  Florence,  but  he  never 
learned  what  he  did  there.     All  this  was  not  enlivening; 
yet  with  an  even,  muffled   tread   the  days  followed  each 
other  and  brought  the  month  of  August  to  a  close.      One 
particular  evening  at  this  time  was  enchanting  ;  there  was 
a  perfect  moon,  looking  so   extraordinarily   large   that   it 
made  everything  its  light  fell  upon  seem  small ;  the  heat 
was  tempered    by  a    soft  west  wind,    and    the  wind   was 
laden   with  the   odours   of  the  early  harvest.     The  hills, 
the  vale  of  the  Arno,  the  shrunken  river,  the  domes   of 
Florence,  were  not  so  much  lighted  as   obscured   by  the 
dense    moonshine.      Rowland    had    found    the    two    ladies 
alone  at  the  villa,  and  he  had  sat  with  them  for  an  hour. 
He  felt  hushed  by  the  solemn  splendour  of  the  scene,  but 
he  risked  the  remark  that  whatever  life  might  yet  have  in 
store  for  either  of  them  this  was  a  night  that  they  would 
never  forget. 


SCO  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  It's  a  night  to  remember  when  one  is  dying  !  "  Mary 
Garland  exchiimod. 

"Oh,  Mary,  how  can  you!"  murmured  Mrs.  Hudson, 
to  whom  this  savoured  of  profanity,  and  to  whose  shrinking 
sense  indeed  the  accumulated  loveliness  of  the  hour  seemed 
to  have  something  shameless  and  defiant. 

They  were  silent  after  this  for  some  time,  but  at  last 
Rowland  addressed  certain  idle  words  to  the  young  girl. 
She  made  no  reply,  and  he  turned  to  look  at  her.  She  was 
sitting  motionless,  with  her  head  pressed  to  Mrs.  Hudson's 
shoulder,  and  the  latter  lady  was  gazing  at  him  through 
the  silvered  dusk  with  a  look  which  gave  a  sort  of  spectral 
solemnity  to  the  sad  weak  meaning  of  her  eyes.  She  had  the 
air  for  the  moment  of  a  little  old  malevolent  fairy.  Mar}-, 
Rowland  perceived  in  an  instant,  was  not  absolutely 
motionless  ;  a  tremor  passed  through  her  figure.  She  was 
crying,  or  on  the  point  of  crying,  and  she  could  not  trust 
herself  to  speak.  Rowland  left  his  place  and  wandered 
to  another  part  of  the  garden,  wondering  at  the  motive  of 
her  sudden  tears.  Of  women's  weeping  in  general  he  had 
a  sovereign  dread,  but  this  somehow  gave  him  a  certain 
pleasure.  When  he  returned  to  his  place  Mary  had  raised 
her  head  and  brushed  away  her  grief.  She  came  away 
from  Mrs,  Hudson,  and  they  stood  for  a  short  time  leaning 
against  the  parapet. 

"  It  seems  to  you  very  strange,  I  suppose,"  said  Row- 
land, "  that  there  should  be  any  trouble  in  such  a  world  as 
this." 

*'  I  used  to  think,"  she  answered,  "  that  if  any  trouble 
came  to  me  I  should  bear  it  like  a  stoic.  But  that  was  at 
home,  where  things  don't  speak  to  us  of  enjoyment  as  they 
do  here.  Here  it  is  such  a  mixture  ;  one  doesn't  know 
what  to  choose,  what  to  believe.  Beauty  stands  there — 
beauty  such  as  this  night  and  this  place  and  all  this  sad 
strange  summer,  have  been  so  full  of — and  it  penetrates 
to  one's  soul  and  lodges  there  and  keeps  saying  that  man 
was  not  made  to  sufi:er  but  to  enjoy.  This  place  has  under- 
mined my  stoicism,  but — shall  I  tell  you  i  I  feel  as  if  I 
were  saying  something  sinful — I  love  it !  " 

"If  it  is  sinful,  I  absolve  you — in  so  far  as  I  have 
power.  We  are  made  both  to  suffer  and  to  enjoy,  1 
suppose.      As    you    say,  it's  a  mixture  !      Just    now  and 


EODEKICK  HUDSON.  301 

her^,  it  seems  a  peculiarly  strange  one.  But  we  must 
take  things  in  turn.". 

His  words  had  a  singular  aptness,  for  he  had  hardly- 
uttered  them  when  Roderick  came  out  from  the  house, 
evidently  in  his  darkest  mood.  He  stood  for  a  moment 
gazing  hard  at  the  view. 

"  It's  a  very  beautiful  night,  my  son,"  said  his  mother, 
going  to  him  timidly  and  touching  his  arm. 

He  passed  his  hand  through  his  hair  and  let  it  stay 
there,  clasping  his  thick  locks.  "  Beautiful  1  "  he  cried  ; 
"  of  course  it's  beautiful !  Everything  is  beautiful ;  every- 
thing is  insolent,  defiant,  atrocious  with  beauty.  Nothing 
is  ugly  but  me — me  and  my  poor  dead  brain  !  " 

"  Oh  my  dearest  son,"  pleaded  poor  Mrs.  Hudson,  "  don't 
you  feel  any  better  1 ' ' 

Roderick  made  no  immediate  answer  ;  but  at  last  he 
spoke  in  a  different  voice.  "  I  came  expressly  to  tell  you 
that  you  needn't  trouble  yourselves  any  longer  to  wait  for 
something  to  turn  up.  Nothing  will  turn  up  !  It's  all 
over  !  I  said  when  I  came  here  I  would  give  it  a  chance. 
I  have  given  it  a  chance.  Haven't  I,  eh.1  Haven't  I, 
Rowland  1  It's  no  use  ;  the  thing's  a  failure !  Do  with 
me  now  what  you  please.  I  recommend  you  to  set  me  up 
there  at  the  end  of  the  garden  and  shoot  me." 

"  I  feel  strongly  inclined,"  said  Rowland,  gravely,  "-to 
go  and  get  my  revolver." 

"■  Oh,  mercy  on  us,  what  language  !  "  cried  Mrs. 
Hudson. 

"  Why  not  1  "  Roderick  went  on.  "  This  would  be  a 
lovely  night  for  it,  and  I  should  be  a  lucky  fellow  to  be 
buried  in  this  garden.  But  bury  me  alive  if  you  prefer. 
Take  me  back  to  Northampton." 

"  Roderick,  will  you  really  come  1  "  cried  his  mother. 

"  Oh  yes,  I'll  go  !  I  might  as  well  be  there  as  anywhere 
— reverting  to  idiocy  and  living  upon  alms.  I  can  do 
nothing  with  all  this  ;  perhaps  I  should  really  like  North- 
ampton. If  I  am  to  vegetate  for  the  rest  of  my  days,  I 
can  do  it  there  better  than  here.'' 

"Oh,  come  home,  come  home,"  Mrs.  Hudson  said,  "and 
we  shall  all  be  safe  and  quiet  and  happy.  My  dearest  son, 
come  home  with  your  poor  little  mother  !  " 

"  Let  us  go  then — quickly  ! " 


302  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Mrs.  Hudson  iluiig  herself  upon  his  neck  for  gratitude. 
**  We  will  go  to-morrow  !  "  she  cried.  "  The  Lord  is  very 
good  to  me  !  " 

Mary  Garland  said  nothing  to  this  ;  but  she  looked  at 
Rowland,  and  her  eyes  seemed  to  contain  a  kind  of  alarmed 
appeal.  Rowland  observed  it  with  exultation,  but  even 
without  it  he  would  have  broken  into  an  eager  protest. 

"  Are  you  serious,  Roderick  'i  "  he  demanded. 

"  Serious  1  of  course  not !  How  can  a  man  with  a  crack 
in  his  brain  be  serious  1  how  can  a  d — d  fool  reason  1  But 
I  am  not  jesting,  either  ;  I  can  no  more  make  jokes  than 
utter  oracles  !  " 

"  Are  you  willing  to  go  home  1  " 

"  Willing  1  God  forbid  !  I  am  simply  amenable  to 
force ;  if  my  mother  chooses  to  take  me  I  won't  resist. 
I  can't !     I  have  come  to  that ! ''" 

"  Let  me  resist  then,"  said  RowLand.  "  Go  home  in  this 
state?     I  can't  stand  by  and  see  it." 

It  may  have  been  true  that  Roderick  had  lost  his  sense 
of  humour,  but  he  scratched  his  head  with  a  gesture  that 
was  almost  comical  in  its  effect.  "  You  are  a  queer  fellosv  ! 
I  should  think  I  would  disgust  you  horribly." 

"  Stay  another  year,"  Rowland  simply  said. 

*'  Doing  nothing  1  " 

"  You  shall  do  something.  I  am  responsible  for  your 
doing  something." 

"  To  whom  are  you  responsible  1 " 

Rowland,  before  replying,  glanced  at  Mary  Garland, 
and  his  glance  made  her  speak  quickly.     "  Not  to  me  !  " 

"  I  am  responsible  to  myself,"  Rowland  declared. 

"  My  poor  dear  fellow  !  "  said  Roderick. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Mallet,  aren't  you  satisfied  1 "  cried  Mrs. 
Hudson,  in  the  tone  in  which  Niobe  may  have  addressed 
the  avenging  archers  after  she  had  seen  her  eldest- born 
fall.  "It's  out  of  all  nature  keeping  him  here.  When 
our  poor  hearts  are  broken,  surely  our  own  dear  native 
land  is  the  place  for  us.  Do  leave  us  to  ourselves, 
sir  !  " 

This  just  failed  of  being  a  dismissal  in  form,  and  Row- 
land made  a  note  of  it.  [Roderick  was  silent  for  some 
moments ;  then  suddenly  he  covered  his  face  with  his  two 
hands.     "  Take  me  at  least  out  of  this  terrible  Italy,"  he 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  303 

cried,  "  where  everything  mocks  and  reproaches  and  tor- 
ments and  eludes  me !  Take  me  out  of  this  land  of 
imjjossible  beauty  and  put  me  in  the  midst  of  ugliness. 
Set  me  down  where  nature  is  coarse  and  Hat,  and  men  and 
manners  are  vulgar.  There  must  be  something  awfully 
ugly  in  Germany.     Pack  me  off  there  !  " 

Kowland  answered  that  if  he  wished  to  leave  Italy  the 
thing  might  be  arranged  ;  he  would  think  it  over  and 
submit  a  proposal  on  the  morrow.  He  suggested  to  Mrs. 
Hudson  in  consequence  that  she  should  spend  the  autumn 
in  Switzerland,  where  she  would  find  a  fine  tonic  climate, 
plenty  of  fresh  milk,  and  several  very  inexpensive  pensions. 
Switzerland  of  course  was  not  ugly,  but  one  could  not  have 
everything  ! 

Mrs.  Hudson  neither  thanked  him  nor  assented  ;  but  she 
wept  and  packed  her  trunks.  Rowland  had  a  theory,  after 
the  scene  which  led  to  these  preparations,  that  Mary  was 
weary  of  waiting  for  E-oderick  to  come  to  his  senses,  that 
the  faith  which  had  borne  him  company  on  the  tortuous 
march  he  was  leading  it,  had  begun  to  believe  it  had  gone 
far  enough.  This  theory  was  not  vitiated  by  something 
she   said  to   him  on  the  day  before  that  on  which  Mrs. 

Hudson  had  arranged  to  leave  Florence. 

"  Cousin  Sarah,  the  other  evening,"  she  said,  "  asked  you 

to  leave  us  to  ourselves.     I  think  she  hardly  knew  what 

she  was  saying,  and  I  hope  you  have  not  taken  offence." 
"  By  no  means  ;  but  I  honestly  believe  that  my  leaving 

you  would  contribute  greatly  to  Mrs.  Hudson's    comfort. 

I  can  be  your  hidden  providence  you  know ;  I  can  watch 

you  at  a  distance  and  come  upon    the    scene    at    critical 

moments." 

The  girl  looked  for  a  moment  at  the  ground  ;  and  then, 

with  sudden  earnestness,  "  I  want  you  to  come  with  us  !  " 

she  said. 

It  need  hardly  be  added  that  after  this  Rowland  went 

with  them. 


304  KODRKICK  HUDSON. 


XXIII. 

Rowland  had  a  very  friendly  memory  of  a  little  moun- 
tain-inn, accessible  with  moderate  trouble  from  Lucerne, 
where  he  had  once  spent  a  blissful  ten  days.  He  had  at 
that  time  been  trudging,  knapsack  on  back,  over  half 
Switzerland,  and  not  being  a  particularly  light  weight 
on  his  legs  it  was  no  shame  to  him  to  confess  that  he  was 
mortally  tired.  The  inn  of  which  I  speak  presented 
striking  analogies  with  a  cow-stable ;  but  in  spite  of  this 
circumstance  it  was  crowded  with  hungry  tourists.  It 
stood  in  a  high  shallow  valley,  with  flower-strewn  Alpine 
meadows  sloping  down  to  it  from  the  base  of  certain  rugged 
rocks  whose  outlines  were  grotesque  against  the  evening 
sky.  Rowland  had  seen  grander  places  in  Switzerland 
that  pleased  him  less,  and  whenever  afterwards  he  wished 
to  think  of  Alpine  opportunities  at  their  best  he  recalled 
this  grassy  concave  among  the  higher  ridges,  and  the 
August  days  he  spent  there,  resting  deliciously  at  his 
length  in  the  lea  of  a  sun-warmed  boulder,  with  the  light 
cool  air  stirring  about  his  temples,  the  wafted  odours  of 
the  pines  in  his  nostrils,  the  tinkle  of  the  cattle-bells  in 
his  ears,  the  vast  progression  of  the  mountain-shadows  be- 
fore his  eyes,  and  a  volume  of  Wordsworth  in  his  pocket. 
His  face,  on  the  Swiss  hill-sides,  had  been  scorched  to  a 
brilliant  hue,  and  his  bed  was  a  pallet  in  a  loft,  which  he 
shared  w^ith  a  German  botanist  of  colossal  stature- — every 
inch  of  him  quaking  at  an  open  window.  These  had  been 
drawbacks  to  felicity,  but  Rowland  hardly  cared  whether 
or  how  he  was  lodged,  for  he  spent  the  livelong  da}^  under 
the  sky,  on  the  crest  of  a  slope  that  looked  at  the  Jung- 
frau.  He  remembered  all  this  on  leaving  Florence  with 
his  friends,  and  he  reflected  that,  as  the  midseason  was 
over,  accommodations  would  be  more  ample  and  charges 
more  modest.  He  communicated  with  his  old  friend  the 
landlord,  and  while  September  was  yet  young  his  com- 
panions established  themselves  under  his  guidance  in  the 
grassy  valley.  , 

He  had  crossed   the  Saint  Gothard  Pass  with  them,  in 


RODEKICK  HUDSON.  305 

the  same  vehicle.  During  the  journey  from  Florence,  and 
especially  during  this  portion  of  it,  the  cloud  that  hung 
over  the  little  party  had  been  almost  dissipated,  and  they 
had  looked  at  each  other,  in  the  close  intimacy  of  the 
train  and  the  posting-carriage,  without  either  retributive 
or  argumentative  glances.  It  was  impossible  not  to  enjoy 
the  magnificent  scenery  of  the  Apennines  and  the  Italian 
Alps,  and  there  was  a  tacit  agreement  among  the  travellers 
to  abstain  from  sombre  allusions.  The  effect  of  this  delicate 
compact  seemed  excellent ;  it  ensured  them  a  week's  in- 
tellectual sunshine.  Roderick  sat  and  gazed  out  of  the 
window  with  a  fascinated  stare  and  with  a  perfect  docility 
of  attitude.  He  concerned  himself  not  a  particle  about  the 
itinerary  or  about  any  of  the  wayside  arrangements;  he 
took  no  trouble  and  he  gave  none.  He  assented  to  every- 
thing that  was  proposed,  talked  very  little,  and  led  for  a 
week  a  perfectly  contemplative  life.  His  mother  rarely 
removed  her  eyes  from  him ;  and  if  a  while  before  this 
would  greatly  have  irritated  him,  he  now  seemed  perfectly 
unconscious  of  her  observation  and  profoundly  indifferent 
to  anything  that  might  befall  him.  They  spent  a  couple 
of  days  on  the  Lake  of  Como,  at  an  hotel  with  white 
porticoes  smothered  in  oleander  and  myrtle,  and  terrace - 
steps  leading  down  to  little  boats  with  striped  awnings. 
They  agreed  it  was  the  earthly  paradise,  and  they  23assed 
the  mornings  strolling  through  the  cedarn  alleys  of  classic 
villas,  and  the  evenings  floating  in  the  moonlight  in  a 
circle  of  outlined  mountains,  to  the  music  of  silver-trickling 
oars.  One  day,  in  the  afternoon,  the  two  young  men  took 
a  long  stroll  together.  They  followed  the  winding  footway 
tha.t  led  towards  Como,  close  to  the  lake-side,  past  the 
gates  of  villas  and  the  walls  of  vineyards,  through  little 
hamlets  propped  on  a  dozen  arches,  and  bathing  their  feet 
and  their  pendant  tatters,  the  grey-green  ripple ;  past 
frescoed  walls  and  crumbling  campaniles  and  grassy  village 
piazzas  and  the  mouth  of  soft  ravines  that  wound  upward 
through  belts  of  swinging  vine  and  vaporous  olive  and 
splendid  chestnut,  to  high  ledges  where  white  chapels 
gleamed  amid  the  paler  boskage,  and  bare  clilf- surfaces, 
with  their  blistered  lips,  drank  in  the  liquid  light.  It 
all  was  consummately  picturesque ;  it  was  the  Italy  that 
we  know  from  the  steel  engravings  in  old  keepsakes  and 

u 


306  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

annuals,  from  the  vignettes  on  music-sheets  and  the  drop- 
curtains  at  theatres ;  an  Italy  that  we  can  never  confess 
ourselves — in  spite  of  our  own  changes  and  of  Italy's — 
that  we  have  ceased  to  believed  Kowland  and  Roderick 
turned  aside  from  the  little  paved  footway  that  clambered 
and  dipi)ed  and  wound  and  doubled  beside  the  lake, 
and  stretched  themselves  idly  beneath  a  tig-tree  on  a 
grassy  promontory.  KowLind  had  never  known  any- 
thing so  divinely  soothing  as  the  dreamy  softness  of 
that  early  autumn  afternoon.  The  iridescent  mountains 
shut  him  in ;  the  little  waves  beneath  him  fretted  the 
white  pebbles  at  the  laziest  intervals ;  the  festooned  vines 
above  him  swayed  just  visibly  in  the  all  but  motionless 
air. 

Eoderick  lay  observing  it  all  with  his  arms  thrown  back 
and  his  hands  under  his  head.  *'  This  suits  me,"  he  said  : 
"  I  could  be  happy  here  and  forget  everything.  Why  not 
stay  here  for  ever  ? "  He  kept  his  position  for  a  long  time 
and  seemed  lost  in  his  thoughts.  Kowland  spoke  to  him, 
but  he  made  vague  answers ;  at  last  he  closed  his  eyes. 
It  seemed  to  Rowland  also  a  place  to  stay  in  for  ever ;  a 
place  for  perfect  oblivion  of  the  disagreeable.  Suddenly 
Roderick  turned  over  on  his  face  and  buried  it  in  his 
arms.  There  had  been  something  passionate  in  his  move- 
ment ;  but  Rowland  was  nevertheless  surprised  when  he  at 
last  jerked  himself  back  into  a  sitting  posture,  to  perceive 
the  trace  of  tears  in  his  eyes.  Roderick  turned  to  his 
friend,  stretching  his  two  hands  out  towards  the  lake  and 
mountains,  and  shaking  them  with  an  eloquent  gesture,  as 
if  his  heart  had  been  too  full  for  utterance. 

"Pity  me  my  friend;  pity  me!"  he  presently  cried, 
"  Look  at  this  lovely  world  and  think  what  it  must  be 
to  be  dead  to  it !  " 

"  Dead  1 "  said  Rowland. 

*'  Dead,  dead ;  dead  and  buried !  Buried  in  an  open 
grave,  where  you  lie  staring  up  at  the  sailing  clouds, 
smelling  the  waving  flowers  and  hearing  all  nature  live 
and  grow  above  you  !     That's  the  way  I  feel  !  " 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  said  Rowland.  "  Death  of  that 
sort  is  very  near  to  resurrection." 

"  It's  too  horrible,"  Roderick  went  on;  "it  has  all  come 
over  me  here  !     If  I  were  not  ashamed  I  could   shed  a 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  307 

bushel   of   tears.     For  one   hour  of    what  I  have   been   I 
would  give  up  anything  I  may  be  !  " 

"  Never  mind  what  you  have  been ;  be  something 
better  !  " 

"  I  shall  never  be  anything  again  ;  it's  no  use  talking  ! 
But  I  don't  know  what  secret  spring  has  been  touched 
since  I  have  lain  here.  Something  in  my  heart  seems 
suddenly  to  open  and  let  in  a  flood  of  beauty  and  desire. 
I  know  what  I  have  lost,  and  I  think  it  horrible !  Mind 
you,  I  know  it,  I  feel  it  !  Remember  that  hereafter. 
Don't  say  that  he  was  stupefied  and  senseless ;  that  his 
perception  was  dulled  and  his  aspiration  dead.  Say  that 
he  trembled  in  every  nerve  with  a  sense  of  the  beauty  and 
sweetness  of  life ;  that  he  rebelled  and  protested  and 
struggled  ;  that  he  was  buried  alive,  \yith  his  eyes  open 
and  his  heart  beating  to  madness ;  that  he  clung  to  every 
blade  of  grass  and  every  wayside  thorn  as  he  passed  ;  that 
it  was  the  most  pitiful  spectacle  you  ever  beheld  ;  that  it 
was  a  scandal,  an  outrage,  a  murder  !  " 

"  Good  heavens  man,  are  you  insane  1  "  Ptowland  cried. 

"I  have  never  been  saner.  I  don't  want  to  be  bad 
company,  and  in  this  beautiful  spot,  at  this  delightful 
hour,  it  seems  an  outrage  to  break  the  charm.  But  I  am 
bidding  farewell  to  Italy,  to  beauty,  to  honour,  to  life  I 
I  only  want  to  assure  you  that  I  know  what  I  lose.  I 
know  it  in  every  pulse  of  my  heart !  Here,  where  these 
things  are  all  loveliest,  I  take  leave  of  them.  Good-bye, 
charming  world  !  " 

During  their  passage  of  the  Saint  Gothard  Roderick 
absented"  himself  much  of  the  time  from  the  carriage,  and 
rambled  far  in  -advance,  along  the  zigzags  of  the  road. 
He  displayed  an  extraordinary  activity;  his  light  weight 
and  slender  figure  made  him  an  excellent  pedestrian,  and 
his  friends  frequently  saw  him  skirting  the  edge  of  plunging 
chasms,  loosening  the  stones  on  long  steep  slopes  or  lifting 
himself  against  the  sky  from  the  top  of  rocky  pinnacles. 
Mary  Garland  walked  a  great  deal,  but  she  remained  near 
the  carriage  to  be  with  Mrs.  Hudson.  Rowland  remained 
near  it  to  be  with  Mrs.  Hudson's  companion.  He  trudged 
bv  her  side  up  that  magnificent  ascent  from  Italy,  and 
found  himself  regretting  that  the  Alps  were  so  low  and 
that  their  trudging  was  not    to   last  a  week.       She  was 

u  2 


308  T?ODET!ICK  HUDSON. 

exhilarated  ;  slie  liked  to  walk  ;  in  the  way  of  mountains, 
until  within  the  last  few  weeks,  she  had  seen  nothing 
greater  than  Mount  Holyoke,  and  she  found  that  the  Alps 
amply  justiiied  their  reputation.  Kowland  knew  that  she 
loved  natural  things,  l)ut  he  was  struck  afresh  with  the 
vivacity  of  her  observation  of  them,  and  with  her  know- 
ledge of  plants  and  rocks.  At  that  season  the  wild  flowers 
had  mostly  departed,  but  a  few  of  them  lingered,  and  Mary 
never  failed  to  espy  them  in  their  outlying  corners.  They 
interested  her  greatly ;  she  was  charmed  when  they  were 
old  friends  and  charmed  even  more  when  they  were  new. 
She  displayed  a  very  light  foot  in  going  in  quest  of  them 
and  had  soon  covered  the  front  seat  of  the  carriage  with 
a  tangle  of  strange  vegetation.  '  Rowland  of  course,  was 
alert  in  her  service,  and  he  gathered  for  her  several 
botanical  specimens  which  at  first  seemed  inaccessible. 
One  of  these  indeed  had  at  first  appeared  easier  of  capture 
than  his  attempt  attested,  and  he  had  paused  a  moment  at 
the  base  of  the  little  peak  on  which  it  grew,  measuring 
the  risk  of  farther  j^ursuit.  Suddenly  as  he  stood  there 
he  remembered  Roderick's  defiance  of  danger  and  of 
Christina  Light,  at  the  Coliseum,  and  he  was  seized  with 
a  strong  desire  to  test  the  courage  of  his  own  companion. 
She  had  just  scrambled  up  a  grassy  slope  near  him,  and 
had  seen  that  the  flower  was  out  of  reach.  As  he  prepared 
to  approach  it  she  called  to  him  eagerly  to  stop  ;  the  thing 
was  impossible  !  Poor  Rowland,  whose  passion  had  been 
terribly  underfed,  enjoyed  immensely  the  thought  of  having 
her  care  for  three  minutes  what  .should  become  of  him.  He 
was  the  least  brutal  of  men,  but  for  a  moment  he  was 
perfectly  indilferent  to  her  suffering. 


I  can  get  the  flower,"  he   called  to  her.      "  Will  y 


ou 


trust  me  'i 

"  I  don't  want  it ;  I  would  rather  not  have  it  !  "  she 
cried. 

''  Will  you  trust  me  ? "  he  repeated  looking  at  her. 

She  looked  at  him  and  then  at  the  flower  ;  he  wondered 
whether  she  would  shriek  and  swoon  as  Christina  had 
done.  "  I  wish  it  were  something  better ! "  she  said 
simply ;  and  then  stood  watching  him  while  he  began  to 
clamber.  Rowland  was  not  a  trained  acrobat  and  his 
enterprise  was  ditiicult;  but  he  kept  his  wits  about  him, 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  809 

made  the  most  of  narrow  foot-holds  and  coigns  of  vantage, 
and  at  last  secured  his  prize.  He  managed  to  stick  it  into 
his  button-hole  and  then  he  contrived  to  descend.  Th(?re 
was  more  than  one  chance  for  an  ugly  fall,  but  he  evaded 
them  all.  It  was  doubtless  not  gracefully  done,  but  it  was 
done,  and  that  Was  all  he  had  proposed  to  himself.  He  was 
red  in  the  face  when  ho  offered  Mary  the  flower,  and  she 
was  visibly  paie.  She  had  watched  him  without  moving. 
All  this  had  passed  without  the  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Hudson, 
who  was  dozing  beneath  the  hood  of  the  carriage.  Mary's 
eyes  did  not  perhaps  display  that  ardent  admiration  which 
was  formerly  conferred  by  the  queen  of  beauty  at  a  tourna- 
ment ;  but  they  expressed  something  in  which  Rowland 
found  his  reward.  "  Why  did  you  do  that  T'  she  asked 
gravely. 

He  hesitated.  He  felt  that  it  was  physically  possible 
to  say,  "  Because  I  love  you !  "  but  it  was  not  morally 
possible.  He  lowered  his  pitch  and  answered  simply, 
''  Because  I  wanted  to  do  something  for  you." 

"  Supj^ose  you  had  fallen  ?  "  """ 

"  I  believed  I  should  not  fall.  And  you  believed  it 
I  think." 

"  I  believed  nothing.  I  simply  trusted  you,  as  you 
asked  me." 

"  Qiwd  erat  demonstrandum  !  "  cried  Rowland.  "  I  think 
you  know  Latin." 

When  our  four  friends  were  established  in  wh?.t  I  have 
called  their  grassy  valley  there  was  a  good  deal  of  scram- 
bling over  slopes  both  grassy  and  stony,  a  good  deal  of 
flower-plucking  on  narrow  ledges,  a  great  many  long  walks 
and,  thanks  to  the  tonic  mountain  air,  not  a  little  exhilara- 
tion. Mrs.  Hudson  was  obliged  to  intermit  her  suspicions 
of  the  deleterious  atmosphere  of  the  Old  World  and  to 
acknowledge  the  superior  purity  of  the  breezes  of  Engelthal. 
She  was  certainly  more  placid  than  she  had  been  in  Italy ; 
having  always  lived  in  the  country  she  had  missed  in  Rome 
and  Florence  that  social  solitude  mitigated  by  bushes  and 
rocks  which  is  so  dear  to  the  true  New  England  tempera- 
ment. The  little  unpainted  inn  at  Engelthal,  with  its 
]3lank  partitions,  its  milk-pans  standing  in  the  sun,  its 
"  help,"  in  the  form  of  angular  young  women  of  the 
country-side,  reminded  her   of  places  of    summer  sojourn 


310  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

in  her  native  land  ;    and    tlie  l^eautif  ul  historic  chambers 
of  the  Villa  Pandolfini  passed  from  her  memory  without 
a  regret  and  without  having,'  in  the  least  modified  her  ideal 
of    a    satisfactory  habitation.     Roderick  had  changed    his 
sky,  but  he  had  not  changed  his  mind  ;  his  humour  was 
still  that  of  which  he  had  given  Rowland  a  glimpse    in 
that  sharp  outbreak  on  the  Lake  of  Como.     He  kept  his 
despair  to  himself  and  he  went  doggedly  about  the  ordinary 
business  of  life  ;  but  it  was  easy  to  see  that  his  spirit  was 
mortally  heavy  and  that  he  lived  and  moved  and  talked 
simply   from   the  force  of  habit.     In  that    sad    half -hour 
among   the    Italian    olives  there  had  been    such   a   fierce 
sincerity  in  his  tone  that  Rowland  began  to  abdicate  the 
critical  attitude.     He  began  to  feel  that  it  was  perfectly 
idle  to  appeal  to  his  comrade's    will ;    there  was  no  will 
left ;  its  place  was  a  mocking  vacancy.     This  view  of  the 
case    indeed    was  occasionally  contravened  by  certain  in- 
dications on  Roderick's  part  of  the  surviving  faculty  of 
resistance  to  disagreeable  obligation  :  one  might  still  have 
said,  if  one  had  been  disposed  to  be  didactic  at  any  hazard, 
that  there  was  a  method  in  his  madness,  that  his  moral 
energy  had  its  sleeping  and  its  waking  hours,  and  that  in 
an  attractive  cause  it  was  capable  of  rising  with  the  da-vvn. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  pleasure  in  this  case  was  quite  at 
one  with  effort  ;    evidently  the    greatest  bliss  in  life    for 
Roderick  would  have   been  an  inspiration.     And  then  it 
was  impossible  not  to  feel  tenderly  to  a  despair  which  had 
so  ceased  to   be  aggressive— not  to  forgive  much   apathy 
to  a   temper   which   had    turned    its   rough    side   inward. 
Roderick    said    frankly   that  Switzerland    made    him    less 
miserable  than  Italy,  and  the  Alps  seemed  less  to  mock  at 
his  idle  hands  than  the  Apennines.     He  indulge^  in  long 
rambles,  generally  alone,  and  was  very  fond  of  climbing 
into  dizzy  places  where  no  sound  could  overtake  him,  and 
there,    flinging    himself    on    the    never-trodden    moss,    of 
pulling  his  hat  over  his  eyes  and  lounging  away  the  hours 
in  perfect  immobility.     Rowland  sometimes  walked  with 
him ;    though    Roderick    never    invited    him    he    seemed 
properly  grateful  for  his  society.     Rowland  now  made   it 
a    rule  to  treat  him  as  a  perfectly  sane  man,  to    assume 
that  all  things  were  well  with  him,  and  never  to  allude  to 
the   prosperity  he  had  parted  with  or  to  the  work  he   was 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  31 1 

rot  doing.  He  would  have  still  said,  had  you  questioned 
him,  that  Roderick's  condition  was  only  a  lugubrious 
interlude.  It  might  last  yet  for  many  a  weary  hour  ;  but 
it  was  a  long  lane  that  had  no  turning.  Rowland's  interest 
in  Mary's  relations  with  her  cousin  was  still  a  very  lively 
one,  and  perplexed  as  he  was  on  all  sides  he  found  nothing 
penetrable  here.  After  their  arrival  at  Engelthal, 
Roderick  appeared  to  care  for  the  young  girl's  society 
rather  more  than  he  had  done  hitherto,  and  of  this  revival 
of  ardour  Rowland  could  not  fail  to  make  a  note.  They 
sat  together  and  strolled  together,  and  she  often  read 
aloud  to  him.  One  day  on  their  coming  to  lunch,  after  he 
had  been  lying  half  the  morning  at  her  feet,  in  the  shadow 
of  a  rock,  Rowland  asked  him  what  she  had  been  reading. 

"  I  don't  know,"  Roderick  said,  "  I  don't  heed  the  sense." 
Mary  heard  this,  and  Rowland  looked  at  her.  She  looked 
at  Roderick  sharply  and  with  a  little  blush.  "  I  listen 
to  Mary,"  Roderick  continued,  "  for  the  sake  of  her  voice. 
It's  stupefyingly  sweet !  "  At  this  Mary's  blush  deepened, 
and  she  looked  away. 

Rowland,  in  Florence,  as  we  know,  had  suffered  his  ima- 
gination to  wander  in  the  direction  of  certain  conjectures 
which  the  reader  may  deem  unflattering  to  her  constancy. 
He  had  asked  himself  whether  her  faith  in  Roderick  had 
not  languished,  and  that  demand  of  hers  which  had  brought 
about  his  own  departure  for  Switzerland  had  seemed  almost 
equivalent  to  a  confession  that  she  needed  his  help  to  be 
constant.  Rowland  was  essentially  a  modest  man,  and  he 
did  not  risk  the  supposition  that  Mary  had  contrasted  him 
with  Roderick  to  his  own  advantage ;  but  he  had  a  certain 
consciousness  of  duty  resolutely  done  which  allowed  itself 
to  fancy  at  moments  that  it  might  be  not  unnaturally 
rewarded  by  the  bestowal  of  such  stray  grains  of  enthi^- 
siasm  as  had  crumbled  away  from  her  estimate  of  his 
companion.  If  some  day  she  had  declared  in  a  sudden 
burst  of  passion  that  she  was  completely  disillusioned  and 
that  she  gave  up  her  recreant  lover,  Rowland's  expectation 
would  have  gone  halfway  to  meet  her.  And  certainly  if 
her  passion  had  taken  this  course  no  generous  critic  would 
utterly  condemn  her.  She  had  been  neglected,  ignored, 
forsaken,  treated  with  a  contempt  which  no  girl  of  a  fine 
temper  could   endure.      There   were   girls,   indeed,    whose 


31-2  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

fineness,  like  that  of  Burd  Helen  in  the  ballad,  lay  iq 
clin<,nng  to  the  man  of  their  love  through  thick  and  thin 
and  in  bowing  their  head  t6  all  hard  usage.  This  attitude 
had  often  an  exquisite  beauty  of  its  own,  but  Rowland 
thought  that  he  had  solid  reason  to  believe  it  never  could 
be  Mary  Garland's.  She  was  not  a  passive  creature  ;  she 
was  not  soft  and  meek  and  grateful  for  chance  bounties. 
With  all  her  reserve  of  manner  she  was  proud  and  eager ; 
she  asked  much  and  she  wanted  what  she  asked ;  she 
believed  in  fine  things  and  she  never  could  long  persuade 
herself  that  fine  things  missed  were  as  beautiful  as  fine 
things  achieved.  Once  Rowland  passed  an  angry  day.  He 
had  dreamed — it  was  the  most  insubstantial  of  dreams — 
that  she  had  given  him  the  right  to  believe  that  she  looked 
to  him  to  transmute  her  discontent.  And  yet  here  she 
was  throwing  herself  back  into  Roderick's  arms  at  his 
lightest  overture,  and  betraying  his  own  half  fearful,  half 
shameful  hopes  !  Rowland^  declared  to  himself  that  his 
position  was  detestable  and  that  all  the  philosophy  he  could 
bring  to  bear  upon  it  would  make  it  neither  honourable 
nor  comfortable.  He  would  go  away  and  make  an  end  of 
it.  He  did  not  go  away  ;  he  simply  took  a  long  walk, 
stayed  away  from  the  inn  all  day,  and  on  his  return  found 
Mary  sitting  out  in  the  moonlight  with  Roderick. 

Rowland,  communing  with  himself  during  the  restless 
ramble  in  question,  had  determined  that  he  would  at  last 
cease  to  observe,  to  heed  or  to  care  for  what  these  two 
young  persons  might  do  or  might  not  do  together.  Never- 
theless some  three  days  afterwards,  the  opportunity  pre- 
senting itself,  he  deliberately  broached  the  subject  with 
Roderick.  He  knew  this  was  inconsistent  and  faint-hearted  ; 
it  was  an  indulgence  to  the  fingers  that  itched  to  handle 
forbidden  fruit.  But  he  said  to  himself  that  it  was  really 
more  logical  to  return  to  the  question  than  to  drop  it,  for 
they  had  formerly  discussed  these  mysteries  very  sharply. 
Was  it  not  perfectly  reasonable  that  he  should  wish  to 
know  the  sequel  of  the  situation  which  Roderick  had  then 
delineated  1  Roderick  had  made  him  promises,  and  it  was 
to  be  expected  that  he  should  wish  to  ascertain  how  the 
promises  had  been  kept.  Rowland  could  not  say  to  himself 
that  if  the  promises  had  been  extorted  for  Mary's  sake,  his 
present  attention  to  them  was  equally  disinterested  ;  and 


RODERICK  HUDSON  313 

so  lie  had  to  admit  that  he  was  indeed  faint-hearted.  He 
may  perhaps  be  deemed  too  rigid  a  casuist,  but  I  have 
repeated  more  than  once  that  he  was  solidly  burdened  with 
a  conscience. 

"I  imagine,"  he  said  to  Eoderick,  "that  you  are  not 
sorry  at  present  to  have  allowed  yourself  to  be  dissuaded 
from  putting  an  end  to  your  affair  with  your  cousin." 

Eoderick  eyed  him  with  the  vague  and  absent  look  which 
had  lately  become  habitual  to  his  face  and  repeated — 
"  Dissuaded  1  " 

"  Don't  you  remember  that  in  Rome  you  wished  to  break 
off  your  engagement,  and  that  I  urged  you  to  hold  to  it, 
though  it  seemed  to  hang  by  so  slender  a  thread  1  I  wished 
you  to  see  what  would  come  of  it.  If  I  am  not  mistaken 
you  are  now  reconciled  to  it," 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Eoderick,  "I  remember  what  you  said; 
you  made  it  a  kind  of  personal  favour  to  yourself  that  I 
should  remain  faithful.  I  consented,  but  afterwards,  when 
I  thought  of  it,  your  attitude  greatly  amused  me.  Had 
it  ever  been  seen  before  1 — a  man  asking  another  man 
to  gratif  V  him  by  not  suspending  his  attentions  to  a  pretty 
girl!" 

"  It  was  as  selfish  as  anything  else,"  said  Eowland. 
"  One  man  puts  his  selfishness  ir.io  one  thing,  and  one 
into  another.  It  would  have  been  a  great  bore  to  me  to 
see  your  cousin  in  low  spirits." 

"  But  you  liked  her — you  admired  her,  eh  1  So  you 
intimated." 

"  I  admire  her  extremely." 

"  It  was  your  originality  then — to  do  you  justice  you 
have  a  great  deal  of  a  certain  sort — to  wish  her  happiness 
secured  in  just  that  fashion.  Many  a  man  would  have 
liked  better  himself  to  make  the  woman  he  admired  happy, 
and  would  have  welcomed  her  low  spirits  as  an  opening 
for  sympathy.     You  were  very  incongruous  about  it." 

"  So  be  it !  "  said  Rowland.  "  The  question  is,  Ai^e  you 
not  glad  I  was  incongruous  ?  Are  you  not  finding  that 
you  do  care  for  your  cousin  after  all  ?  " 

"  I  don't  pretend  to  say.  When  she  arrived  in  Rome  I 
found  I  didn't  care  for  her,  and  I  honestly  proposed  that 
we  should  have  no  humbug  about  it.  If  you  on  the  con- 
trary thought  there  Avas  something  to  be  gained  by  having 


314  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

a  little  liuiri])ng  I  was  willing  to  try  it !  I  don't  see  that 
the  situation  is  really  changed.  Mary  is  all  that  she  ever 
was — more  than  all.  But  I  don't  care  for  her  !  I  don't 
care  for  anything,  and  I  don't  tind  myself  insj)ired  to  make 
an  exception  in  her  favour.  The  only  difference  is  that  I 
don't  care  now  whether  I  care  for  her  or  not.  Of  course 
marrying  such  a  useless  lout  as  I  am  is  out  of  the 
question  for  any  woman,  and  I  should  pay  Mary  a  poor 
compliment  to  assume  that  she  is  in  a  hurry  to  celebrate 
our  nuptials." 

'•  Oh  you'll  do — you're  in  love  !  "  said  Rowland,  not  very 
logically.  It  must  be  confessed  at  any  cost  that  this  asser- 
tion was  made  for  the  sole  purpose  of  hearing  Roderick 
deny  it. 

But  it  quite  failed  of  its  aim.  Roderick  gave  a  liberal 
shrug  of  his  shoulders  and  an  irresponsible  toss  of  his  head. 
"  Call  it  what  you  please  1  I  am  past  caring  for  the  names 
of  thnigs.' 

Rowland  had  not  only  been  illogical,  he  had  also  been 
slightly  disingenuous.  He  did  not  believe  that  his  com- 
panion was  in  love  ;  he  had  argued  the  false  to  learn  the 
true.  The  truth  was  that  Roderick  was  again  in  some 
degree  under  a  charm  and  that  he  found  a  healing  virtue 
in  the  company  of  a  woman  of  tact.  He  had  said  shortly 
before  that  her  voice  was  sweet  to  his  ear ;  and  this  was  a 
happy  sign.  If  her  voice  was  sweet  it  was  probably  that 
her  glance  was  not  amiss,  that  her  touch  had  a  quiet  magic, 
and  that  her  whole  personal  presence  had  learned  the  art  of 
not  being  irritating.  So  Rowland  reasoned,  and  invested 
Mary  Crarland  with  the  subtlest  merits. 

It  was  true  that  she  herself  helped  him-  little  to  definite 
conclusions  and  that  he  remained  in  puzzled  doubt  as  to 
whether  these  happy  touches  were  still  a  matter  of  the 
heart  or  had  become  simply  a  matter  of  the  con'^cience. 
He  watched  for  signs  that  she  took  a  pleasure  in  Rodericks 
favour  again  ;  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  was  on  her 
guard  against  interpreting  it  too  largely.  It  was  now  her 
turn — he  fancied  that  he  sometimes  gathered  from  certain 
nameless  indications  of  glance  and  tone  and  gesture — it  was 
now  her  turn  to  be  indifferent,  to  care  for  other  things. 
Again  and  again  Rowland  asked  himself  what  these  things 
were  that  she  might  be  supposed  to  care  for,  to  the  injury  of 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  315 

ideal  constancy ;  and  again,  havings  designated  them,  he 
divided  them  into  two  portions.  ^One  was  that  larger 
experience  in  general  which  had  come  to  her  with  her 
arrival  in  Europe  ;  the  vague  sense,  borne  in  upon  her 
imagination,  that  there  were  more  things  one  might  do  ^ 
with  one's  life  than  youth  and  ignorance  and  Northampton 
had  dreamt  of  ;  the  revision  of  old  pledges  in  the  light  of 
new  emotions^  The  other  was  the  experience  in  especial 
of  Rowland's— what  %  Here  Rowland  always  paused,  in 
perfect  sincerity,  to  measure  afresh  his  possible  claim  to  the 
young  girl's  regard.  What  might  he  call  it  %  It  had  been 
more  than  civility  and  yet  it  had  been  less  than  devo- 
tion. It  had  spoken  of  a  desire  to  serve,  but  it  had  said 
nothing  of  a  hope  of  reward.  Nevertheless  Rowlagad's 
fancy  hovered  about  the  idea  that  it  was  recompensable, 
and  his  reflections  ended  in  a  reverie  w^hich  perhaps  did  not 
define  it,  but  at  least  on  each  occasion  added  a  little  to  its 
volume.  Since  Mary  had  asked  him  as  a  sort  of  favour  to 
herself  to  come  with  them  to  Switzerland,  he  thought  it 
possible  she  might  let  him  know  whether  he  seemed  to 
hav3  done  her  a  service.  The  days  passed  without  her 
doing  so,  and  at  last  Rowland  walked  away  to  an  isolated 
eminence  some  five  miles  from  the  inn  and  murmured  to 
the  silent  rocks  that  she  was  ungrateful.  Listening  nature 
appeared  not  to  contradict  him,  so  that  on  the  morrow  he 
asked  the  young  girl  with  a  touch  of  melancholy  malice 
whether  it  struck  her  that  his  deflection  from  his  other 
plan  had  been  attended  with  brilliant  results. 

"Why,  we  are  delighted  that  you  are  with  us !  "  she 
answered. 

He  was  anything  but  satisfied  with  this  ;  it  seemed  to 
imply  that  she  had  forgotten  that  she  had  formally  asked 
him  to  come.  He  reminded  her  of  her  request  and  recalled 
the  place  and  time.  "  That  evening  on  the  terrace,  late, 
after  Mrs.  Hudson  had  gone  to  bed  and  Roderick  being 
absent." 

She  perfectly  remembered,  but  the  memory  seemed  to 
trouble  her.  "  I  am  afraid  your  kindness  has  been  a  great 
charge  upon  you,"  she  said.  "You  wanted  very  much  to 
do  something  else." 

"  I  wanted  above  all  things  to  oblige  you,  and  I  made 
no  sacrifice.     But  if  I  had  made  an  immense  one  it  would 


316  KODEKICK  HUDSON. 

be  more  taan  made  up  to  me  by  any  assurance  that  I  have 
helped  iloderick  into  a  better  condition." 

IShe  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then,  "  "Why  do  you  ask 
me?"  she  said.  "You  are  able  to  judge  quite  as  well 
as  I." 

Kowland  blushed ;  he  desired  to  justify  himself  in  the 
most  veracious  manner.  ''  The  truth  is,"  he  said,  "  that 
I  am  afraid  I  care  only  in  the  second  place  for  Roderick's 
holding  up  his  head.  What  I  care  for  in  the  first  place 
is  your  happiness." 

"  I  don't  know  why  that  should  be,"  she  answered.  "  I 
have  certainly  done  nothing  to  make  you  so  much  my 
friend.  If  you  were  to  tell  me  you  intended  to  leave  us 
to-morrow,  I  am  afraid  that  I  should  not  venture  to  ask 
you  to  stay.  But  whether  you  go  or  stay,  let  us  not  talk 
of  Roderick !  " 

•'But  that,"  said  Rovv'land,  "does  not  answer  my 
question.     Is  he  better  %  " 

"  No  ! "  she  said,  and  turned  away. 

He  was  careful  not  to  tell  her  that  he  intended  to 
leave  them. 


XXIY. 


One  day  shortly  after  this  as  the  two  young  men  sat 
at  the  inn-door  watching  the  sunset,  which  on  that  evening 
was  very  rich  and  clear,  Rowland  made  an  attempt  to 
sound  his  companion's  present  sentiment  touching  Chris- 
tina Light.  "  I  wonder  w^here  she  is,"  he  said,  "  and  what 
sort  of  a  life  she  is  leading  her  prince." 

Roderick  at  first  made  no  response.  He  was  w\atching 
a  figure  on  the  summit  of  some  distant  rocks  opposite  to 
them.  The  figure  was  apparently  descending  into  the 
valley,  and  in  relief  against  the  crimson  screen  of  the 
western  sky  it  looked  gigantic.  "  Christina  Light  % " 
Roderick  at  last  repeated,  as  if  arousing  himself  from  a 
reverie.  "  Where  she  is  %  It's  extraordinary  how  little 
I  care  I  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  317 

"  Have  you  completely  got  over  it  1 " 

To  this  Roderick  made  no  direct  reply ;  he  sat  brooding 
a  while.     "  She's  a  humbug  !  "  he  presently  exclaimed. 

"  Possibly  !  "  said  Kowland.  "  But  I  have  known  worse 
ones." 

"  She  disappointed  me  !  "  Roderick  continued  in  the  same 
tone. 

"■  Had  she  really  given  you  up  1 " 

"Oh,  don't  remind  me  !"  Roderick  cried.  "Why  the 
devil  should  I  think  of  it  1  It  was  only  three  months  ago, 
but  it  seems  like  ten  years."  His  friend  said  nothing  more, 
and  after  a  while  he  went  on  of  his  own  accord.  "  I  be- 
lieved there  was  a  future  in  it  all  !  She  pleased  me — 
pleased  me  ;  and  when  an  artist — such  as  I  was — is  pleased, 
you  know  !  "  And  he  paused  again.  "  You  never  saw  her 
as  I  did  ;  you  never  heard  her  in  her  great  moments.  But 
there  is  no  use  talking  about  that  !  At  first  she  wouldn't 
regard  me  seriously ;  she  chaffed  me  and  made  light  of  me. 
But  at  last  I  forced  her  to  admit  I  was  a  great  man.  Think 
of  that,  sir  !  Christina  Light  called  me  a  great  man.  A 
great  man  was  what  she  was  looking  for,  and  we  agreed  to 
hnd  our  happiness  for  life  in  each  other.  To  please  me 
she  promised  not  to  marry  till  I  should  give  her  leave.  I 
was  not  in  a  marrying  waj'-  myself,  but  it  was  damnation 
to  think  of  another  man  possessing  her.  To  spare  my 
sensibilities  she  promised  to  turn  off  her  prince,  and  the 
idea  of  her  doing  so  made  me  as  happy  as  to  see  a  perfect 
statue  shaping  itself  in  the  block.  You  have  seen  how  she 
kept  her  promise  !  When  I  learned  it,  it  was  as  if  the 
statue  had  suddenly  cracked  and  turned  hideous.  She 
died  for  me,  like  that  !  "  And  he  snapped  his  fingers. 
*'  Was  it  wounded  vanity,  disappointed  desire,  betrayed 
confidence  ?  I  am  sure  I  don't  know ;  you  will  certainly 
have  some  good  name  for  it." 

"The  poor  girl  did  the  best  she  could,"  said  Rowland. 

"  If  that  was  her  best,  so  much  the  worse  for  her !  I 
have  hardly  thought  of  her  these  two  months,  but  I  have 
not  forgiven  her." 

"  Well,  you  may  believe  that  you  are  avenged.  I  can't 
think  of  her  as  happy." 

"  I  don't  pity  her  !  "  said  Roderick.  Then  he  relapsed 
into  silence,  and  the  two  sat  watching  the  colossal  figure 


318  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

as  it  made  its  way  downwurd  along  the  jagged  silhouette 
of  the  rocks.  "  Who  is  this  mighty  man,"  cried  Roderick 
at  last,  "  and  what  is  he  coming  down  upon  us  for  'i  We 
are  small  people  here,  and  we  can't  undertake  to  keep 
company  with  giants." 

'•  W^iit  till  we  meet  himonourow^n  level,"  said  Rowland, 
"  and  perhaps  he  will  not  overtop  us." 

"  He's  like  me,"  Roderick  rejoined ;  "  for  ten  minutes  he 
will  have  passed  for  a  great  man  !  "  At  this  moment  the 
tigure  sank  beneath  the  horizon-line  and  became  invisible 
in  the  uncertain  light.  Suddenly  Roderick  said,  "  I  should 
like  to  see  her  once  more — simply  to  look  at  her." 

"  I  would  not  advise  it,"  said  Rowland. 

"  It  was  her  beauty  that  did  it !  "  Roderick  went  on. 
"  It  was  all  her  beauty ;  in  comparison,  the  rest  was 
nothing.  What  befooled  me  was  to  think  of  it  as  my  own 
property !  And  I  had  made  it  mine — no  one  else  had 
studied  it  as  I  had,  no  one  else  understood  it.  What  does 
that  stick  of  a  Casamassima  know  about  it  at  this  hour  ? 
I  should  like  to  see  it  just  once  more  ;  it's  the  only  thing 
in  the  world  of  which  I  can  say  so." 

"  I  would  not  advise  it,"  Rowland  repeated. 

"  That's  right,  my  dear  fellow,''  said  Roderick  ;  "  don't 
advise  !     That's  no  use  now." 

The  dusk  meanwhile  had  thickened,  and  they  had  not 
perceived  a  figure  approaching  them  across  the  open  space 
in  front  of  the  house.  Suddenly  it  stepped  into  the  circle 
of  light  projected  from  the  door  and  windows,  and  they 
beheld  little  Sam  Singleton  stopping  to  stare  at  them.  He 
was  the  giant  whom  they  had  seen  descending  along  the 
rocks.  When  this  was  made  apparent  Roderick  was 
seized  with  a  fit  of  intense  hilarity — it  w^as  the  first  time 
he  had  laughed  in  three  months.  Singleton,  who  carried 
a  knapsack  and  walking-staff,  received  from  Rowland  the 
friendliest  welcome.  He  was  in  the  serenest  possible 
humour,  and  if  in  the  way  of  luggage  his  knapsack  con- 
tained nothing  but  a  comb  and  a  second  shirt,  he  produced 
from  it  a  dozen  admirable  sketches.  He  had  been  trudg- 
ing over  half  Switzerland  and  making  everywhere  the  most 
vivid  pictorial  notes.  They  were  mos^.ly  in  a  box  at 
Interlaken,  and  in  gratitude  for  Rowland's  appreciation 
he  presently  telegraphed  for  his  box,  which  according  to 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  319 

the  excellent  Swiss  method  was  punctually  delivered  by 
post.  The  nights  were  cold,  and  our  friends,  with  three 
or  four  other  chance  sojourners,  sat  in- doors  over  a  fire 
of  great  logs.  Even  with  Roderick  sitting  moodily  in  the 
outer  shadow  they  made  a  sympathetic  little  circle,  and 
they  turned  over  Singleton's  drawings,  while  he  perched 
in  the  chimney-corner,  blushing  and  explaining,  with  his 
feet  on  the  rounds  of  the  chair.  He  had  been  pede.'tri- 
anising  for  six  weeks,  and  he  was  glad  to  rest  a  while  at 
Engelthal.  It  was  an  economic  repose  however,  for  he 
sallied  forth  every  morning  with  his  sketching  tools  on 
his  back,  in  search  of  material  for  new  studies.  Roderick's 
hilarity,  after  the  first  evening,  had  subsided,  and  he 
watched  the  little  painter's  serene  activity  with  a  gravity 
that  w\as  almost  portentous.  Singleton,  who  was  not  in 
the  secret  of  his  personal  misfortunes,  still  treated  him 
with  timid  frankness  as  the  rising  star  of  American  art. 
Roderick  had  said  to  Rowland  at  first  that  Singleton  re- 
minded him  of  some  curious  little  insect  with  a  remarkable 
mechanical  instinct  in  its  antennce ;  but  as  the  days  went 
by  it  was  apparent  that  the  modest  landscapist's  unflagging 
industry  grew  to  have  an  oppressive  meaning  for  him.  It 
pointed  a  moral,  and  Roderick  used  to  sit  and  con  the 
moral  as  he  saw  it  figured  in  Singleton's  bent  back,  on  the 
hot  hill-sides,  protruding  from  beneath  his  white  umbrella. 
One  day  he  wandered  up  a  long  slope  and  overtook  him 
as  he  sat  at  work  ;  Singleton  related  the  incident  after- 
wards to  Rowland,  who,  after  giving  him  in  Rome  a 
hint  of  Roderick's  aberrations,  had  strictly  kept  his  own 
counsel. 

"  Are  you  always  like  this  1  "  said  Roderick,  in  almost 
sepulchral  accents. 

"Like  this?"  repeated  Singleton,  blinking  confusedly, 
with  an  alarmed  conscience. 

'•'  You  remind  me  of  a  watch  that  never  runs  down.  If 
one  listens  hard  one  hears  you  always- — tic-tic,  tic-tic." 

"  Oh,  I  see,"  said  Singleton,  beaming  ingenuously.  "  I 
am  very  equable." 

"  You  are  very  equable,  yes.  And  do  you  find  it 
pleasant  to  be  equable  ?  " 

Singleton  turned  and  smiled  more  brightly,  while  he 
sucked  the  water  from  his  camel's-hair  brush.     Then,  with 


320  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

a  quickened  sense  of  his  indebtedness  to  a  Providence  that 
hid  endowed  him  with  intrinsic  facilities,  "Oh,  delightful!" 
he  exclaimed. 

Koderick  stood  looking  at  him  a  moment.  "  Damnation  !  " 
he  said  at  last  solemnly,  and  turned  his  back. 

Later  in  the  week  Kowland  and  Koderick  took  a  long 
walk.     They  had  walked  before  in  a  dozen  different  direc- 
tions, but  they  had  not  yet  crossed  a  charming  little  wooded 
pass  which  shut  in  their  valley  on  one  side  and  descended 
into  the  vale  of  Engelberg.     In  coming  from  Lucerne  they 
had  approached  their  inn  by  this  path,  and  feeling  that 
they  knew  it  had  hitherto  neglected  it  in  favour  of  un- 
trodden ways.    But  at  last  the  list  of  these  was  exhausted, 
and  Rowland  proposed  the  walk  to  Engelberg  as  a  novelty. 
The  "place  is  half  bleak  and  half  pastoral;  a  huge  white 
monastery  rises  abruptly  from  the  green  floor  of  the  valley 
and  complicates  its  picturesqueness  with  an  element  rare 
in  Swiss  scenery?*    Hard  by  is  a  group  of  chalets  and  inns, 
with  the  usual  appurtenances  of  a  prosperous  Swiss  resort 
— lean  brown  guides  in  baggy  homespun,  lounging  under 
carved   wooden  galleries,   stacks   of    alpenstocks  in   every 
doorway,  sun- scorched    Englishmen  without    shirt-collars. 
Our  two  friends  sat  a  while  at  the  door  of  an  inn,  dis- 
cussing a  pint  of  wine,  and  then  Roderick,  Avho  was  inde- 
fatigable, announced  his  intention  of  climbing  to  a  certain 
rocky  pinnacle  which  overhung  the  valley  and,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  one  of  the  guides,  commanded  a  view 
of  the  Lake  of  Lucerne.     To  go  and  come  back  was  only 
a  matter  of  an  hour,  but  Rowland,  v/ith  the  prospect  of 
his  homeward  trudge  before  him,  confessed  to  a  preference 
for  lounging  on  his   bench  ox,  at  jnost,  strolling  a  trifle 
farther  and  taking  a  look  at  the  monastery.      Roderick 
went  off  alone,  and  his  companion  after  a  while  bent  his 
steps  to  the  monasterial  church.     It  was  remarkable,  like 
most  of  the  churches  of  Catholic  Switzerland,  for  a  hideous 
style  of    devotional  ornament ;   but  it  had  a  certain  cold 
and  musty  picturesqueness,  and   Rowland   lingered   there 
with  some  tenderness   for  Alpine   piety.      While  he  was 
near  the  high-altar  some  people  came  in  at  the  west  door  ; 
but  he  did  not  notice  them,  and  wixs  presently  engaged  in 
deciphering  a  curious  old  German  epitaph  on  one  of  the 
miu-al  tablets.    At  last  he  turned  away,  wondering  whether 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  321 

its  syntax  or  its  theology  were  the  more  uncomfortable, 
and,  to  his  infinite  surprise,  found  himself  confronted  with 
Prince  and  Princess  Casamassima. 

The  surprise  on  Christina's  part,  for  an  instant,  was  equal, 
and  at  first  she  seemed  disposed  to  turn  away  without 
letting  it  give  place  to  a  greeting.  The  Prince  however 
saluted  gravely,  and  then  Christina  in  silence  put  out  her 
hand.  Rowland  immediately  asked  whether  they  were 
allying  at  Engelberg,  but  Christina  only  looked  at  him 
without  speaking.  The  Prince  answered  his  questions,  and 
related  that  they  had  been  making  a  month's  tour  in  Swit- 
zerland, that  at  Lucerne  his  wife  had  been  somewhat  obsti- 
nately indisposed,  and  that  the  physician  had  recommended 
a  week's  trial  of  the  tonic  air  and  goat's  milk  of  Engelberg. 
The  scenery,  said  the  Prince,  was  stupendous,  but  the  life 
was  terribly  sad — and  they  had  three  days  more  !  It  was 
a  blessing,  he  urbanely  added,  to  see  a  good  Roman  face. 

Christina's  attitude,  her  solemn  silence  and  her  penetrating 
gaze,  seemed  to  Rowland  at  first  to  savour  of  affectation  ; 
but  he  presently  perceived  that  she  was  deeply  agitated 
and  was  afraid  of  betraying  herself.  "  Do  let  us  leave 
this  hideous  edifice,"  she  said ;  "  there  are  things  here  that 
set  one's  teeth  on  edge."  They  moved  slowly  to  the  door, 
and  when  they  stood  outside,  in  the  sunny  coolness  of  the 
valley,  she  turned  to  Rowland  and  said,  "  I  am  extremely 
glad  to  see  you."  Then  she  glanced  about  her  and  observed 
against  the  wall  of  the  church  an  old  stone  seat.  She 
looked  at  Prince  Casamassima  a  moment,  and  he  smiled 
more  intensely,  Rowland  thought,  than  the  occasion  de- 
manded. "  I  wish  to  sit  here,"  she  said,  "  and  speak  to 
this  old  acquaintance — alone." 

"At  your  pleasure,  dear  friend,"  said  the  Prince. 

The  tone  of  each  was  measured,  to  Rowland's  ear;  but 
that  of  Christina  was  dry  and  that  of  her  husband  was 
splendidly  urbane.  Rowland  remembered  that  the  Cavaliere 
had  told  him  that  Mrs.  Light's  candidate  was  a  prince 
indeed,  and  our  friend  wondered  how  he  relished  a  peremp- 
tory accent.  Casamassima  was  an  Italian  of  the  unde- 
monstrative type,  but  Rowland  nevertheless  divined  that, 
like  other  princes  before  him,  he  had  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  thing  called  compromise.  "  Shall  I  come  back  ?  " 
he  asked,  with  the  same  smile. 

X 


322  T^ODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  In  half  an  hour,"  said  Christina. 

In  the  clear  outer  light,  Rowland's  first  impression  of 
her  was  that  she  was  more  benutifnl  than  ever.  And  yet 
in  three  months  she  could  hardly  have  changed  ;  the  change 
was  in  Rowland's  own  vision  of  her,  which  that  last  inter- 
view on  the  eve  of  her  marriage  had  made  unprecedentedly 
tender. 

"  How  came  you  here  1  "  she  asked.  *'  Are  you  staying 
in  this  place  1  " 

*'  I  am  staying  at  Engelthal,  some  ten  miles  away ;  I 
walked  over." 

"  Are  you  alone  1  " 

"  I  am  with  Roderick  Hudson." 

"  Is  he  here  with  you  ]  " 

"  He  went  half  an  hour  ago  to  climb  a  rock  for  a 
view." 

"  And  his  mother  and — and  the  jwomessa — where  are 
they  1  " 

""They  also  are  at  Engelthal." 

"  What  do  you  do  there  T '     . 

"  What  do  you  do  here  ? "  said  Rowland,  smiling. 

"  I  count  the  minutes  till  my  week  is  over.  I  hate 
mountains  ;  they  depress  me  to  death.  I  am  sure  Miss 
Garland  likes  them." 

"  She  is  very  fond  of  them,  I  believe." 

"  You  believe — don't  you  know  ?  But  I  have  given  up 
trying  to  imitate  Miss  Garland,"  said  Christina. 

"  You  surely  need  imitate  no  one." 

"Don't  say  that,"  she  said,  gravely.  "So  you  have 
walked  ten  miles  this  morning  ?  And  you  are  to  walk 
back  again  1 ' ' 

"  Back  again  to  dinner." 

"  And  Mr.  Hudson  too  1  " 

"  Mr.  Hudson  esjDecially.     He  is  a  great  walker." 

"  You  men  are  happy  !  "  Christina  cried.  "  I  believe 
I  should  enjoy  the  mountains  if  I  could  do  such  things. 
It  is  sitting  still  and  having  them  scowl  down  at  you  I 
Prince  Casamassima  never  walks.  He  only  goes  on  a 
mule.     He  was  carried  up  the  Faulhorn  in  a  palanquin." 

"  In  a  palanquin  ?  "  said  Rowland. 

"  In  one  of  those  machines — a  chaise  d,  j^orteurs — like 
a  woman." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  32^ 

Rowland  received  this  information  in  silence  ;  it  was 
equally  unbecoming  to  be  either  amused  or  shocked. 

"  Is  Mr.  Hudson  to  join  you  again  1  Will  he  come 
here  1 "  Christina  asked. 

"I  shall  soon  begin  to  expect  him."  ■ 

"  What  shall  you  do  when  you  leave  Switzerland  1  " 
Christina  continued.      "  Shall  you  go  back  to  Rome  1 " 

*'  I  rather  doubt  it.     My  plans  are  very  uncertain." 

"  They  depend  upon  Mr.  Hudson,  eh  1 " 

*'  In  a  great  measure." 

"  I  want  you  to  tell  me  about  him.  Is  he  still  in  that 
perverse  state  of  mind  that  afflicted  you  so  much  *? " 

Rowland  looked  at  her  mistrustfully,  without  answering. 
He  was  indisposed,  instinctively,  to  tell  her  that  Roderick 
was  unhappy ;  it  was  possible  she  might  offer  to  try  to 
cure  him.     She  immediately  perceived  his  hesitation. 

"I  see  no  reason  why  we  should  not  be  frank,"  she 
said.  "  I  should  think  we  were  excellently  placed  for  that 
sort  of  thing.  You  remember  that  formerly  I  cared  very 
little  what  1  said,  don't  you  1  Well,  I  care  absolutely  not 
at  all  now.  I  say  what  I  please,  I  do  what  I  please  !  How 
did  Mr.  Hudson  receive  the  news  of  my  marriage  1 " 

«  Yery  badly,"  said  Rowland. 

"  With  rage  and  reproaches  'i "  And  as  Rowland  hesi- 
tated again — "  AYith  silent  contempt  1 " 

"  I  can  tell  you  but  little.  He  spoke  to  me  on  the 
subject,  but  I  stopped  him.  I  told  him  it  was  none  of  his 
business  nor  of  mine." 

"  That  was  an  excellent  answer  !  "  said  Christina  softly. 
"  Yet  it  was  a  little  your  business,  after  those  sublime 
protestations  I  treated  you  to.  I  was  really  very  fine  that 
morning,  eh  ?  " 

^'  You  do  yourself  injustice,"  said  Rowland.  "  I  should 
be  at  liberty  now  to  believe  you  were  insincere." 

"  What  does  it  matter  now  whether  I  was  insincere  or 
not  ?  I  can't  conceive  of  anything  mattering  less.  I  was 
very  fine — -isn't  it  true  1  " 

"  You  know  what  I  think  of  you,"  said  Rowland.  And 
for  fear  of  being  forced  to  betray  his  suspicion  of  the  cause 
of  her  change  he  took  refuge  in  a  commonplace.  "  I  hope 
your  mother  is  well." 

"  My  mother  is  in  the  enjoyment  of  superb  health,  and 

X  2 


324  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

may  be  seen  every  eveniug  at  the  Casino  at  the  Baths  of 
Lucca  confiding  to  every  new-comer  that  she  has  married 
her  daughter  to  a  pearl  of  a  prince.' '' 

Ilowland  was  anxious  for  news  of  Mrs.  Light's  com- 
panion, and  the  natural  course  was  frankly  to  incjuire 
about  him.  "And  the  Cavaliere  Giacosa  is  welU "  he 
asked. 

Christina  hesitated,  but  she  betrayed  no  other  embar- 
rassment. "  The  Cavaliere  Giacosa  has  retired  to  his  native 
city  of  Ancona,  upon  a  pension,  for  the  rest  of  his  natural 
life.     He  is  a  very  good  old  man  !  " 

"  I  have  a  great  regard  for  him,"  said  Ilowland  gravely, 
at  the  same  time  that  he  privately  wondered  whether 
the  Cavaliere' s  pension  was  paid  by  Prince  Casamassima 
for  services  rendered  in  connection  with  his  marriage. 
"  And  what  do  you  do,"  he  continued,  "  on  leaving  this 
place  %  " 

"  We  go  to  Italy — we  go  to  Naples."  She  rose  and 
stood  silent  for  a  moment,  looking  down  the  valley.  The 
figure  of  Prince  Casamassima  appeared  in  the  distance, 
balancing  his  white  umbrella.  As  her  eyes  rested  upon  it 
Ilowland  imagined  that  he  saw  something  deeper  in  the 
strange  expression  which  had  lurked  in  her  face  while  he 
talked  to  her.  At  first  he  had  been  dazzled  by  her  bloom- 
ing beauty,  to  which  the  lapse  of  weeks  had  only  added 
splendour ;  then  he  had  seen  a  heavier  ray  in  the  light  of 
her  eye — a  sinister  intimation  of  sadness  and  bitterness. 
It  was  the  outward  mark  of  her  sacrificed  ideal.  Her  eyes 
grew  cold  as  she  looked  at  her  husband,  and  when  after 
a  moment  she  turned  them  upon  Rowland  they  struck  him 
as  intensely  tragical.  He  felt  a  singular  mixture  of 
sympathy  and  dread ;  he  wished  to  give  her  a  proof  of 
friendship,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  had  now 
turned  her  face  in  a  direction  where  friendship  was  power- 
less to  interpose.  She  half  read  his  feelings  apparently 
and  she  gave  a  beautiful  sad  smile.  "I  hope  we  may 
never  meet  again  !  "  she  said.  And  as  Ilowland  gave  her 
a  protesting  look — "  You  have  seen  me  at  my  best.  I 
wish  to  tell  you  solemnly,  I  was  sincere  !  I  know  appear- 
ances are  against  me,"  she  went  on  quickly.  "  There  is  a 
great  deal  I  can't  tell  you.  Perhaps  you  have  guessed  it ; 
I  care  very  little.     You  know  at  any  rate  I  did  my  best. 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  325 

It  wouldn't  serve  ;  I  was  beaten  and  broken ;  they  were 
stronger  than  I.     Now  it's  another  aft'air  !  " 

"It  seems  to  me  you  have  a  large  chance  for  happi- 
ness yet,"  said  Eowland  vaguely. 

"  Happiness  ?  I  mean  to  cultivate  rapture  ;  I  mean  to 
go  in  for  bliss  ineffable  !  You  remember  I  told  you  that 
I  was  in  part  the  world's  and  the  devil's.  Now  they  have 
taken  me  all.  It  was  their  choice ;  may  they  never 
repent !  " 

"  I  shall  hear  of  you,"  said  Rowland. 

''IZou  will  hear  of  me.  And  whatever  you  do  hear, 
remember  this  :  I  was  sincere  !  " 

Prince  Casamassima  had  approached,  and  Rowland 
looked  at  him  with  a  good  deal  of  simple  compassion  as 
a  part  of  that  "world"  against  which  Christina  had 
launched  her  mysterious  menace.  It  was  obvious  that 
be  was  a  good  fellow  and  that  he  could  not  in  the  nature 
of  things  be  a  positively  bad  husband  ;  but  his  distin- 
guished inoffensiveness  only  deepened  the  infelicity  of 
Christina's  situation  by  depriving  her  defiant  attitude 
of  the  sanction  of  relative  justice.  So  long  as  she  had 
been  free  to  choose  she  had  esteemed  him ;  but  from  the 
moment  she  was  forced  to  marry  him  she  had  detested  him. 
Rowland  read  in  the  young  man's  elastic  Italian  mask  a 
profound  consciousness  of  all  this ;  and  as  he  found  there 
also  a  record  of  other  curious  things — of  pride,  of  temper, 
of  bigotry,  of  an  immense  heritage  of  more  or  less  aggres- 
sive traditions — he  reflected  that  the  matrimonial  con- 
junction of  his  two  companions  might  be  sufficiently 
prolific  in  incident. 

"  You  are  going  to  Naples  %  "  Rowland  said  to  the  Prince 
by  of  way  conversation, 

"  We  are  going  to  Paris,"  Christina  interposed  slowly 
and  softly.  "We  are  going  to  London.  We  are  going  to 
Vienna.     We  are  going  to  St.  Petersburg." 

Prince  Casamassima  dropped  his  eyes  and  fretted  the 
earth  with  the  point  of  his  umbrella.  While  he 
engaged  Rowland's  attention  Christina  turned  away. 
When  Rowland  glanced  at  her  again  he  saw  a  change  pass 
over  her  face  ;  she  was  observing  something  that  was  con- 
cealed from  his  own  eyes  by  the  angle  of  the  church  wall. 
In  a  moment  Roderick  stepped  into  sight. 


326  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

He  stopped  short,  astonished  ;  his  face  and  fiiinrewoe 
jaded,  his  garments  dusty.  He  looked  at  Christina  from 
head  to  foot,  and  then,  slowly,  his  cheek  flushed  and  his 
eye  expanded.  Christina  returned  his  gaze,  and  for  some 
moments  there  was  a  singular  silence.  "  You  don't  look 
well  1  "  Christina  said  at  last. 

Roderick  answered  nothing ;  he  only  looked  and  looked, 
as  if  she  had  been  a  statue.  "  You  are  no  less  beautiful  !  " 
he  presently  cried. 

She  turned  away  with  a  smile  and  stood  a  while  gazing 
down  the  valley ;  Koderick  stared  at  Prince  Casamassima. 
Christina  then  put  out  her  hand  to  Rowland.  "  Farewell," 
she  said.  "If  you  are  near  me  in  future,  don't  try  to  see 
me  !  "  And  then  after  a  pause,  in  a  lower  tone — "  I  vxis 
sincere  !  "  She  addressed  herself  again  to  Roderick  and 
asked  him  some  commonplace  about  his  walk.  But  he  said 
nothing ;  he  only  looked  at  her.  Rowland  at  first  had 
expected  an  outbreak  of  reproach,  but  it  was  evident  that 
the  danger  was  every  moment  diminishing.  He  was  for- 
getting everything  but  her  beauty,  and  as  she  stood  there 
and  let  him  feast  upon  it  Rowland  was  sure  that  she  knew 
it.  "I  won't  say  farewell  to  you,"  she  said;  "we  shall 
meet  again  ! "  And  she  moved  gravely  away.  Prince 
Casamassima  took  leave  courteously  of  Rowland ;  upon 
Roderick  he  bestowed  a  bow  of  exaggerated  civility. 
Roderick  appeared  not  to  see  it ;  he  was  watching  Chris- 
tina as  she  passed  over  the  grass.  His  eyes  followed  her 
until  she  reached  the  door  of  her  inn.  Here  she  stopped 
and  looked  back  at  him. 


XXY. 


On  the  homeward  walk  that  evening  Roderick  preserved 
an  ominous  silence,  and  early  on  the  morrow,  saying  nothing 
of  his  intentions,  he  started  off  alone ;  Rowland  saw  him 
striding  with  light  elastic  steps  along  the  rugged  path  to 
Engelberg.     He  was  absent  all  day  and  gave  no  account  of 


KODERICK  HUDSON.  327 

himself  on  his  return.  He  said  lie  was  deadly  tired,  and 
he  went  to  bed  early.  When  he  had  left  the  room  Mary 
Garland  drew  near  to  Rowland. 

"  I  wish  to  ask  you  a  question,"  she  said.  "  What 
happened  to  Roderick  yesterday  at  Engelberg  1  " 

"You  have  discovered  that  something  happened  1  " 

"  I  am  sure  of  it.     Was  it  something  painful  1  " 

"  I  don't  know  how  at  the  present  moment  he  judges  it. 
He  met  the  Princess  Casamassima." 

"Thank  you  !  "  said  Mary  simply,  and  turned  away. 

The  conversation  had  been  brief,  but  like  many  small 
things  it  furnished  Rowland  with  food  for  reflection. 
When  one  is  looking  for  symptoms  one  easily  finds  tliem. 
This  was  the  first  time  Mary  Garland  had  asked  Rowland 
a  question  which  it  was  in  Roderick's  power  to  answer, 
the  first  time  she  had  frankly  betrayed  Roderick's  reti- 
cence.    Rowland  ventured  to  think  it  marked  an  era. 

The  next  morning  was  sultry,  and  the  air,  usually  so  fresh 
at  those  altitudes,  was  oppressively  heavy.  Rowland 
lounged  on  the  grass  a  w^hile,  near  Singleton,  who  was  at 
work  under  his  white  umbrella  within  view  of  the  house  ;  and 
then  in  quest  of  coolness  he  wandered  away  to  the  rocky 
ridge  whence  you  looked  across  at  the  Jungfrau.  To-day 
however  the  white  summits  were  invisible  ;  their  heads 
were  muffled  in  sullen  clouds  and  the  valleys  beneath  them 
curtained  in  dun-coloured  mist.  Rowland  had  a  book  in  his 
pocket  and  he  took  it  out  and  opened  it.  But  his  page 
remained  unturned  ;  his  own  thoughts  were  more  absorb- 
ing. His  interview  with  Christnia  Light  had  made  a  great 
impression  upon  him,  and  he  was  haunted  with  the  memory 
of  her  almost  blameless  bitterness  and  of  all  that  was  tragic 
and  fatal  in  her  latest  transformation.  These  things  were 
immensely  appealing,  and  Rowland  thought  with  infinite 
impatience  of  Roderick's  having  again  become  acquainted 
with  them.  It  required  little  imagination  to  apprehend 
that  the  young  sculptor's  condition  had  also  appealed  to 
Christina.  His  consummate  indifference,  his  supreme  de- 
fiance, would  make  him  a  magnificent  trophy,  and  Christina 
had  announced  with  sufficient  distinctness  that  she  had 
Sciid  good-bye  to  scruples.  It  was  her  fancy  at  present  to 
treat  the  world  as  a  garden  of  pleasure,  and  if  hitherto 
she  had  played  with  Roderick's  passion  on  its  stem,  there 


328  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

was  little  doubt  that  now  she  would  pluck  it  with  an 
unfalteriug  hand  and  drain  it  of  its  acrid  sweetness.  And 
why  the  deuce  need  Pvoderick  have  gone  marching  back 
to  destruction]  Rowland's  meditations,  even  when  they 
began  in  rancour,  often  brought  him  comfort ;  but  on  this 
occasion  they  ushered  in  a  (juite  peculiar  quality  of  unrest. 
He  felt  conscious  of  a  sudden  collapse  in  his  moral  energy ; 
a  current  that  had  been  flowing  for  two  years  with  liquid 
strength  seemed  at  last  to  pause  and  stagnate.  Kowland 
looked  away  at  the  sallow  vapours  on  the  mountains ;  their 
dreariness  had  an  analogy  with  the  stale  residuum  of  his 
own  generosity.  At  last  he  had  arrived  at  the  uttermost 
limit  of  the  deference  a  sane  man  might  pay  to  other 
people's  folly ;  nay,  rather,  he  had  transgressed  it ;  he  had 
been  befooled  on  a  gigantic  scale.  He  turned  to  his  book 
and  tried  to  woo  back  patience,  but  it  gave  him  cold 
comfort  and  he  tossed  it  angrily  away.  He  pulled  his 
hat  over  his  eyes  and  tried  to  wonder  dispassionately 
whether  atmospheric  conditions  had  not  something  to  do 
with  his  ill- humour.  He  remained  some  time  in  this 
attitude,  but  was  finally  aroused  from  it  by  a  singular 
sense  that  although  he  had  heard  nothing  some  one  had 
approached  him.  He  looked  up  and  saw  Roderick  standing 
before  him  on  the  turf.  His  mood  made  the  spectacle  un- 
welcome, and  for  a  moment  he  felt  like  speaking  roughly, 
Roderick  stood  looking  at  him  with  an  expression  of 
countenance  which  had  of  late  become  rare.  There  was 
an  unfamiliar  spark  in  his  eye  and  a  certain  imperious 
alertness  in  his  carriage.  Confirmed  habit,  with  Rowland, 
came  speedily  to  the  front.  "  What  is  it  now  ]  "  he  asked 
himself,  and  invited  Roderick  to  sit  down.  Roderick  had 
evidently  something  particular  to  say,  and  if  he  remained 
silent  for  a  time  it  was  not  because  he  was  ashamed  of  it. 

"  I  should  like  you  to  do  me  a  favour,"  he  said  at  last. 
"  Lend  me  some  money." 

"  How  much  do  you  wish  ]  "  Rowland  asked. 

"  Say  a  thousand  francs." 

Rowland  hesitated  a  moment.  "  I  don't  wish  to  be 
indiscreet,  but  may  I  ask  you  what  you  propose  to  do 
with  a  thousand  francs  1 " 

"  To  go  to  Interlaken." 

"  And  why  are  you  going  to  Interlaken  1  " 


rODERICK  HUDSON.  320 

Roderick  replied  without  a  shadow  of  wavering,  "  Because 
that  woman  is  to  be  there." 

Rowland  burst  out  laughing,  but  Roderick  remained 
serenely  grave.  "  You  have  forgiven  her  then  1  "  said 
Rowland. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it !  " 

"  I  don't  understand." 

*'  Neither  do  I.  I  only  know  that  she  is  incomparably 
beautiful,  and  that  she  has  waked  me  up  amazingly. 
Besides,  she  asked  me  to  come." 

"  She  asked  you  1 " 

"  Yesterday,  in  so  many  words." 

"  Ah,  the  shameless  jade  !  " 

"  Exactly.     I  am  willing  to  take  her  for  that." 

"  Why  in  the  name  of  common  sense  did  you  go  back 
to  her?" 

"  Why  did  I  find  her  standing  there  like  a  goddess  who 
had  just  stepped  out  of  her  cloud  ?  Why  did  I  look  at  her  ? 
Before  I  knew  where  I  was,  the  spell  was  wrought." 

Rowland,  who  had  been  sitting  erect,  threw  himself 
back  on  the  grass  and  lay  for  some  time  staring  up  at 
the  sky.  At  last,  raising  himself,  "Are  you  perfectly 
serious  ?  "  he  asked. 

''  Deadly  serious." 

"  Your  idea  is  to  remain  at  Interlaken  some  time  1 " 

"  Indefinitely  !  "  said  Roderick ;  and  it  seemed  to  his 
companion  that  the  tone  in  which  he  said  this  made  it 
immensely  well  worth  hearing. 

"  And  your  mother  and  cousin  meanwhile  are  to  remain 
here  ?     It  will  soon  be  getting  very  cold,  you  know." 

"  It  doesn't  seem  much  like  it  to-day." 

"  Yery  true  ;  but  to-day  is  a  day  by  itself." 

"  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  their  going  back  to 
Lucerne.     I  depend  upon  your  taking  charge  of  them." 

At  this  moment  Rowland  reclined  upon  the  grass  again  ; 
and  again  after  reflection  he  faced  his  friend.  "  How 
would  you  express,"  he  asked,  "  the  character  of  the  profit 
that  you  expect  to  derive  from  your  excursion  ?  " 

"  I  see  no  need  of  expressing  it.  The  proof  of  the  pudding 
is  in  the  eating  !  The  case  is  simply  this.  I  desire  im- 
mensely to  be  near  Christina  Light,  and  it  is  such  a  huge 
refreshment  to  find  myself  again  desiring  something,  that 


330  KODEKICK  HUDSON. 

I  propose  to  drift  with  the  current.  As  I  say,  she  has 
waked  me  up,  aud  it  is  possible  that  something  may  come 
of  it.  She  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  were  alive  again.  This 
sort  of  thing,"  and  he  glanced  down  at  the  inn,  "  I  call 
death  !  " 

"  That  I  am  very  grateful  to  hear.  You  really  feel  as 
if  you  might  do  something  1 " 

"  Don't  ask  too  much.  I  only  know  that  she  makes  my 
heart  beat,  makes  me  see  visions." 

"  You  feel  encouraged  ?  " 

*'I  feel  excited." 

"  You  are  really  looking  better." 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  Now  that  I  have  answered  your 
questions,  please  to  give  me  the  money." 

Rowland'  shook  his  head.     *'  For  that  purpose  I  can't !  " 

"  You  can't  1 " 

"  It's  impossible.  Your  plan  is  pure  folly.  I  can't  help 
yon  in  it." 

Roderick  flushed  a  little,  and  his  eye  expanded.  "  I  will 
borrow  what  money  I  can  then  from  Mary  !  "  This  was 
not  viciously  said  ;  it  had  simply  the  ring  of  passionate 
resolution. 

Instantly  it  brought  Rowland  to  terms.  He  took  a 
bunch  of  keys  from  his  pocket  and  tossed  it  upon  the 
grass.  "  The  little  brass  one  opens  my  dressing-case,"  he 
said.     "  You  will  find  money  in  it." 

Roderick  let  the  keys  lie ;  something  seemed  to  have 
struck  him ;  he  looked  askance  at  his  friend.  "  You  are 
awfully  considerate  of  Mary  ! " 

"  You  certainly  are  not.      Your  proposal  is  an  outrage." 

"  Very  likely.     It's  proof  the  more  of  my  desire." 

"  If  you  have  so  much  steam  on  then,  use  it  for 
something  else  !  You  say  you  are  aw\ake  again.  I  am 
delighted  ;  only  be  so  in  the  best  sense.  Isn't  it  very 
plain  1  If  you  have  the  energy  to  desire,  you  have  also  the 
energy  to  reason  and  to  judge.  If  you  can  care  to  go,  you 
can  also  care  to  stay,  and  staying  being  the  more  profitable 
course,  the  inspiration,  on  that  side,  for  a  man  who  has  his 
self-confidence  to  win  back  again,  should  be  greater." 

Roderick  plainly  did  not  relish  this  simple  logic,  and 
his  eye  grew  angry  as  he  listened  to  its  echo.  •'  Oh,  the 
devil !  "  he  cried. 


EODERICK  HUDSON.  33i 

But  Rowland  gave  him  more  of  it.  "  Do  you  believe 
that  hanging  about  Christina  Light  will  do  you  any  good  i 
Do  you  believe  it  won't  ]  In  either  case  you  should  keep 
away  from  her.  If  it  won't  it's  your  duty  ;  and  if  it  will 
you  can  get  on  without  it." 

"  Do  me  good  1  "  cried  Roderick.  "  What  do  I  want  of 
'  good  ' — what  should  I  do  with  '  good  '  1  I  want  what  she 
gives  me,  call  it  by  what  name  you  will.  I  want  to  ask 
no  questions,  but  to  take  what  comes  and  let  it  fill  the 
impossible  hours !  But  I  didn't  come  to  discuss  the 
matter." 

"  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  discuss  it,"  said  Rowland. 
"  I  simply  protest." 

Roderick  meditated  a  moment.  "  I  have  never  yet 
thought  twice  about  accepting  any  favour  of  you,"  he 
said  at  last ;  "  but  this  one  sticks  in  my  throat." 

"It  is  not  a  favour;  I  lend  you  the  money  only  under 
compulsion." 

"  Well  then,  I  will  take  it  only  under  compulsion  !  " 
Roderick  exclaimed.  And  he  sprang  up  abruptly  and 
marched  away. 

His  words  were  ambiguous ;  Rowland  lay  on  the  grass 
wondering  what  they  meant.  Half  an  hour  had  not  elapsed 
before  Roderick  reappeared,  heated  with  rapid  walking  and 
wiping  his  forehead.  He  flung  himself  down  and  looked 
at  his  friend  with  an  eye  which  expressed  something  purer 
than  bravado  and  yet  baser  than  conviction. 

"  I  have  done  my  best !  "  he  said.  "  My  mother  is  out 
of  money ;  she  is  expecting  next  week  some  circular  notes 
from  London.  She  had  only  ten  francs  in  her  pocket. 
Mary  Garland  gave  me  every  sou  she  possessed  in  the 
world.  It  makes  exactly  thirty-four  francs.  That's  not 
enough." 

"  You  asked  Mary  Garland  ?  "  cried  Rowland. 

"  I  asked  her." 

"  And  told  her  your  purpose  1 " 

"  I  named  no  names.     But  she  knew  !  " 

"  What  did  she  say  1  " 

"  Not  a  syllable.     She  simply  emptied  her  purse." 

Rowland  turned  over  and  buried  his  face  in  his  arms. 
He  felt  a  movement  of  irrepressible  elation,  and  he  barely 
stilled  a  cry  of  joy.     Now,  surely,  Roderick  had  shattered 


332  ROUEPJCK  HUDSON. 

the  last  link  in  the  chain  that  bound  Mary  to  him,  and 
after  this  she  would  be  free!  ....  When  he  turned 
about  again,  Roderick  was  still  sitting  there,  and  he  had 
not  touched  the  keys  which  lay  on  the  grass. 

"  I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me,"  said 
Roderick,  '•  but  I  have  an  insurmountable  aversion  to 
taking  your  money." 

"The  matter,  I  suppose,  is  that  you  have  a  grain  of 
wisdom  left." 

"No,  it's  not  that.  It's  a  kind  of  brute  instinct.  I 
find  it  extremely  provoking  !  "  He  sat  there  for  some 
time  with  his  head  in  his  hands  and  his  eyes  on  the 
ground.  His  lips  were  compressed,  and  he  was  evidently, 
in  fact,  in  a  state  of  high  disgust.  "  You  have  succeeded 
in  making  this  thing  uncommonly  unpleasant  !  "  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  said  Rowland,  "  but  I  can't  see  it  in  any 
other  way." 

"  That  I  believe,  and  I  resent  the  range  of  your  vision 
pretending  to  be  the  limit  of  my  action.  You  can't  feel 
for  me  or  judge  for  me,  and  there  are  certain  things  you 
know  nothing  about.  I  have  suffered,  sir !  "  Roderick 
went  on,  with  increasing  emphasis  and  with  the  ring  of 
his  fine  old  Virginian  pomposity  in  his  tone.  "  I  have 
suffered  damnable  torments.  Have  1  been  such  a  placid, 
contented,  comfortable  man  this  last  six  mouths  that  when 
I  find  a  chance  to  forget  my  misery  I  should  take  such 
pains  not  to  profit  by  it  ?  You  ask  too  much,  for  a  man 
who  himself  has  no  occasion  to  play  the  hero.  I  don't  say 
that  invidiously ;  it's  your  disposition  and  you  can't  help  it. 
But  decidedly  there  are  certain  things  you  know  nothing 
about." 

Rowland  listened  to  this  outbreak  with  open  eyes,  and 
Roderick,  if  he  had  been  less  intent  upon  his  own  eloquence, 
would  probably  have  perceived  that  he  turned  pale.  "  These 
things — what  are  they  ?  "  Rowland  asked. 

"  They  are  women,  principally,  and  what  relates  to 
women.  Women  for  you,  by  what  I  can  make  out,  mean 
nothing.  You  have  no  imagination — no  sensibility,  nothing 
to  be  touched  !  " 

"  That's  a  serious  charge,"  said  Rowland  gravely. 
"  I  don't  make  it  without  proof  !  " 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  333 

"  And  what  is  your  proof  ^  " 

Roderick  hesitated  a  moment.  "  The  way  yon  treated 
Christina  Light.    I  call  that  grossly  obtuse." 

*'  Obtuse  1  "  Rowland  repeated  frowning. 

"  Thick-skinned,  beneath  your  good  fortune." 

"  My  good  fortune  ?  " 

"  There  it  is — it's  all  news  to  you !  You  had  pleased 
her.  I  don't  say  she  was  dying  of  love  for  you,  but  she 
took  a  fancy  to  you." 

"  We  will  let  this  pass  !  "  said  Rowland,  after  a  silence. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  insist.     I  have  only  her  own  word  for  it," 

"  Her  own  word  ?  " 

"  You  noticed,  at  least,  I  suppose,  that  she  was  not 
afraid  to  speak !  I  never  repeated  it,  not  because  I  was 
jealous,  but  because  I  was  curious  to  see  how  long  your 
ignorance  would  last  if  it  were  left  to  itself." 

"  I  frankly  confess  it  would  have  lasted  for  ever.  And 
yet  I  don't  consider  that  my  insensibility  is  proved." 

"  Oh,  don't  say  that,"  cried  Roderick,  "  or  I  shall  begin 
to  suspect — what  I  must  do  you  the  justice  to  say  that  I 
never  have  suspected — that  you  too  have  a  grain  of  conceit ! 
Upon  my  word  when  I  think  of  all  this,  your  protest,  as 
you  call  it,  against  my  following  Christina  Light  seems  to 
me  thoroughly  offensive.  There  is  something  monstrous 
in  a  man's  pretending  to  lay  down  the  law  to  a  sort  of 
emotion  with  which  he  is  quite  unacquainted — in  his  asking 
a  fellow  to  give  up  a  lovely  woman  for  conscience'  sake 
when  he  has  never  had  the  impulse  to  strike  a  blow  for 
one  for  passion's  !  " 

"  Oh,  oh  ! "  cried  Rowland. 

"  It's  very  easy  to  exclaim,"  Roderick  went  on  ;  "  but 
you  must  remember  that  there  are  such  things  as  nerves 
and  senses  and  imagination  and  a  restless  demon  within 
that  may  sleep  sometimes  for  a  day,  or  for  six  months, 
but  that  sooner  or  later  wakes  up  and  thumps  at  your  ribs 
till  you  listen  to  him  !  If  you  can't  understand  it,  take 
it  on  trust  and  let  a  poor  visionary  devil  live  his  life  as 
he  can  !  " 

Roderick's  words  seemed  at  first  to  Rowland  like  some- 
thing heard  in  a  dream  ;  it  was  impossible  they  had  been 
actually  spoken — so  supreme  an  expression  were  they  of 
the  insolence  of  egotism.     Reality  was  never  so  consistent 


.334  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

as  that !  But  Roderick  sat  there  bahmcing  his  beautiful 
he.id,  and  the  echoes  of  his  strident  accent  still  lingered 
along  the  half-muilled  mountain-side.  Kowland  suddenly- 
felt  that  the  cup  of  his  chagrin  was  full  to  overflowing, 
and  his  long-gathered  bitterness  surged  into  the  simple 
wholesome  passion  of  anger  for  wasted  kindness.  But 
he  spoke  without  violence,  and  Roderick  was  probably  at 
first  far  from  measuring  the  force  that  lay  beneath  his 
words. 

"  You  are  incredibly  ungrateful,"  he  said.  "  You  are 
talking  arrogant  nonsense.  What  do  you  know  about  my 
senses  and  my  imagination  1  How  do  you  know  whether 
1  have  loved  or  suffered  1  If  I  have  held  my  tongue  and 
not  troubled  you  with  my  complaints,  you  find  it  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  to  put  an  ignoble  construction 
on  my  silence !  I  loved  quite  as  well  as  you  ;  indeed  I 
think  I  may  say  rather  better.  I  have  been  constant.  I 
have  been  willing  to  give  more  than  I  received.  I  have 
not  forsaken  one  mistress  because  I  thought  another  more 
beautiful,  nor  given  up  the  other  and  believed  all  manner 
of  evil  about  her  because  I  had  not  my  way  with  her. 
I  have  been  a  good  friend  to  Christina  Light,  and  it  seems 
to  me  my  friendship  does  her  quite  as  much  honour  as 
your  love  !  " 

"  Your  love — your  suiiering — your  silence — -your  friend- 
ship !  "  cried  Roderick.     "  I  declare  I  don't  understand  !  " 

"  I  dare  say  not.  You  are  not  used  to  understanding 
such  things — you  are  not  used  to  hearing  me  talk  of  my 
feelings.  You  are  altogether  too  much  taken  up  with 
your  own.  Be  as  much  so  as  you  please  ;  I  have  always 
respected  your  right.  Only  when  I  have  kept  myself  in 
durance  on  purpose  to  leave  you  an  open  field,  don't  by 
way  of  thanking  me,  come  and  call  me  an  idiot." 

*'0h,  you  claim  then  that  you  have  made  sacrifices'?" 

'*  Several  !     You  have  never  suspected  it  1 " 

"  If  I  had  do  you  suppose  I  would  have  allowed  it  1 " 
cried  Roderick. 

"  They  were  the  sacrifices  of  friendship  and  they  were 
easily  made ;  only  I  don't  enjoy  having  them  thrown  back 
in  my  teeth." 

This  was  under  the  circumstances  a  sufficiently  generous 
speech  ;  but  Roderick  was  not  in  the  humour  to  take  it 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  335 

generously,  "Come,  be  more  definite,"  he  said.  "  Let  me 
know  where  it  is  the  shoe  has  pinched." 

RowLxnd  frowned  ;  if  Roderick  would  not  take  i^^enerosity 
he  should  have  full  justice.  "  It's  a  perpetual  sacrifice 
to  live  with  a  transcendent  egotist !  " 

'*  I  am  an  egotist  1 "  cried  Roderick. 

"  Did  it  never  occur  to  you  1  " 

"  An  egotist  to  whom  you  have  made  perpetual  sacri- 
fices ?  "  He  repeated  the  words  in  a  singular  tone  ;  a  tone 
that  denoted  neither  exactly  indignation  nor  incredulity, 
but  (strange  as  it  may  seem)  a  sudden  violent  curiosity  for 
news  about  himself. 

'*You  are  selfish,"  said  Rowland;  "you  think  only  of 
yourself  and  believe  only  in  yourself.  You  regard  other 
people  only  as  they  play  into  your  own  hands.  You  have 
always  been  very  frank  about  it,  and  the  things  seemed 
so  mixed  up  with  the  temper  of  your  genius  and  the  very 
structure  of  your  mind  that  often  one  was  willing  to  take 
the  evil  with  the  good  and  to  be  thankful  that  considering 
your  great  talent  yoii  were  no  worse.  But  if  one  believed 
in  you  as  I  have  done  one  paid  a  tax  on  one's  faith  !  " 

Roderick  leaned  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  clasped  his 
hands  together  and  crossed  them  shadewise  over  his  eyes. 
In  this  attitude  for  a  moment  he  sat  looking  coldly  at  his 
friend.  "  So  I  have  made  you  very  uncomfortable  ?  "  he 
went  on. 

"  Extremely  so." 

"  I  have  been  eager,  grasping,  obstinate,  vain,  ungrate- 
ful, indifferent,  cruel?  " 

"  I  have  accused  you  mentally  of  all  these  things — with 
the  exception  of  vanity." 

"  You  have  often  hated  me  1  " 

"  Never.  I  should  have  parted  company  with  you 
before  coming  to  that." 

"  But  you  have  wanted  to  part  company,  to  bid  me  go 
on  my  way  and  be  hanged  ?  " 

"  Repeatedly.  Then  I  have  had  patience  and  forgiven 
you." 

"  Forgiven  me,  eh  1     Suffering  all  the  while  1  " 

"  Yes,  you  may  call  it  suffering." 

"  Why  did  you  never  tell  me  all  this  before  1  " 

"  Because    my  affection    was  always    stronger   than  my 


336  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

resentment ;  because  I  preferred  to  err  on  the  side  of  kind- 
ness because  I  had  myself  in  a  measure  launched  you  in 
the  world  and  thrown  you  among  temptations;  and  because 
nothing  short  of  your  unwarrantable  aggression  just  now 
could  have  made  me  say  those  painful  things." 

Ptoderick  picked  up  a  blade  of  long  grass  and  began  to 
bite  it;  Rowland  was  puzzled  Ijy  his  expression  and  manner. 
They  seemed  strangely  cynical ;  there  was  something  re- 
volting in  his  deei)ening  calmness.  "  I  must  have  been 
hideous,"  Roderick  presently  resumed. 

"  I  am  not  talking  for  your  entertainment,"  said 
Ptowland. 

"  Of  course  not.  For  my  edification  !  "  As  Roderick 
said  these  words  there  was  not  a  ray  of  warmth  in  his 
brilliant  eye. 

"I  have  spoken  for  my  own  relief,"  Rowland  went  on, 
"  and  so  that  you  need  never  again  go  so  utterly  astray  as 
you  have  done  this  morning." 

*'  It  has  been  a  terrible  mistake  then  1  "  What  his  tone 
expressed  was  not  wilful  mockery,  but  a  kind  of  persistent 
irresponsibility  which  Rowland  found  equally  exasperating. 
He  answered  nothing.  "  And  all  this  time,"  Roderick 
continued,  "  you  have  been  in  love  1     Tell  me  the  woman/' 

Rowland  felt  an  immense  desire  to  give  him  a  visible 
palpable  pang.     "  Her  name  is  jNIary  Garland,"  he  said. 

Apparently  he  succeeded.  The  surprise  was  great ; 
Roderick  coloured  as  he  had  never  done.  **  Mary  Garland  1 
Heaven  forgive  us  I  " 

Rowland  observed  the  "  us ; "  Roderick  threw  himself 
back  on  the  turf.  The  latter  lay  for  some  time  staring  at 
the  sky.  At  last  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  Rowland  rose 
also,  rejoicing  keenly,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  his  com- 
panion's confusion. 

"  For  how  lone:  has  this  been  ]  "  Roderick  demanded. 

"  Since  I  first  knew  her." 

"  Two  years  !     And  you  have  never  told  her  1  " 

"Never." 

"  You  have  told  no  one  1  " 

"  You  are  the  first  person." 

"  Why  have  you  been  silent  1 " 

"  Because  of  your  engagement." 

"  But  you  have  done  your  best  to  keep  that  up." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  337 

"  That's  another  matter  !  " 

"  It's  very  strange  !  "  said  Ptoderick  presently.  "  It's 
like  something  in  a  novel." 

"  We  needn't  expatiate  on  it,"  said  Rowland  "  All  I 
wished  to  do  was  to  rebut  your  charge  that  I  am  an 
abnormal  being." 

But  still  Roderick  pondered.  "  All  these  months,  while 
I  was  going  my  way  !     I  wish  you  had  mentioned  it," 

*'  T  acted  as  was  necessary,  and  that's  the  end  of  it." 

■'  You  have  a  very  high  opinion  of  her  'i  " 

''  The  highest." 

''  I  remember  now  your  occasionally  expressing  it  and 
my  being  struck  with  it.  But  I  never  dreamed  you  were 
in  love  with  her.     It's  a  pity  she  doesn't  care  for  you  !  " 

Rowland  had  made  his  point  and  he  had  no  wish  to 
prolong  the  conversation ;  but  he  had  a  desire  to  hear 
more  of  this  and  he  remained  silent. 

"  You  hope,  I  suppose,  that  some  day  she  may  1 " 
Roderick  asked. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  offered  to  say  so ;  but  since  you  ask 
me,  I  do." 

"  I  don't  believe  it.  '  She  idolises  me,  and  if  she  never 
were  to  see  me  again  she  would  idolise  my  memory." 

This^  might  be  vivid  insight  and  it  might  be  profound 
fatuity.'  Rowland  turned  away;  he  could  not  trust  himself 
to  speat. 

"  My  indifference,  my  neglect  of  her,  must  have  seemed 
to  you  horrible.  Altogether  I  must  have  appeared  simply 
hideous." 

"Do  you  really  care,"  Rowland  asked,  "what  you 
appeared  1  " 

"  Certainly.  I  have  been  damnably  stupid.  Isn't  an 
artist  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  perceptions  ^  I  am  hugely 
disgusted." 

"  Well,  you  understand  now,  and  we  can  start  afresh." 

"  And  yet,"  said  Roderick,  "  though  you  have  suffered, 
in  a  degree,  I  don't  believe  you  have  suffered  so  much  as 
some  other  men  would  have  done." 

"  Yery  likely  not.  In  such  matters  quantitative  analysis 
is  difficult." 

Roderick  picked  up  his  stick  and  stood  looking  at  the 
ground,       "  IS'everthele.'-s,  I  must    have    seemed    hideous,"' 

Y 


338  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

he  repeated— "  hideous."     lie  turned  away   frowning,  and 
Rowhmd  offered  no  contradiction. 

They  were  both  silent  for  some  time,  and  at  hii^t 
Eoderick  gave  a  heavy  sigh  and  began  to  walk  away. 
"  Where  are  you  going  'i  "  Rowland  then  asked. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  care !  To  walk ;  you  have  given  me 
something  to  think  of."  This  seemed  a  salutary  impulse, 
and  yet  Rowland  felt  a  nameless  perplexity.  "To  have 
been  so  stupid  damns  me  more  than  anything  !  "  Roderick 
went  on.     "  Certainly  I  can  shut  up  shop  now." 

[Rowland  felt  in  no  smiling  humour,  and  yet  in  spite 
of  himself  he  could  almost  have  smiled  at  the  very  con- 
sistency of  the  fellow.  It  w^as  egotism  still — aesthetic  dis- 
gust at  the  graceless  contour  of  his  conduct,  but  never  a  hint 
of  simple  sorrow  for  the  pain  he  had  given^  Rowland  let  him 
go,  and  for  some  moments  stood  watching  him.  Suddenly 
Rowland  became  conscious  of  a  singular  and  most  illogical 
impulse — a  desire  to  stop  him,  to  have  another  word  with 
him— not  to  lose  sight  of  him.  He  called  him  and  Roderick 
turned.     "  I  should  like  to  go  with  you,"  said  Rowland. 

"  I  am  fit  only  to  be  alone.     I  am  damned  !  " 

"  You  had  better  not  think  of  it  at  all,"  Rowland  cried, 
"  than  think  in  that  way." 

"  There  is  only  one  way.  I  have  been  hideous !  "  And 
he  broke  off  and  marched  away  with  his  long  elastic  step, 
swinging  his  stick.  Rowland  w^atched  him,  and  at  the  end 
of  a  moment  called  to  him.  Roderick  stopped  and  looked 
at  him  in  silence,  and  then  abruptly  turned  and  disappeared 
below  the  crest  of  a  hill. 


XXYI. 


Rowland  passed  the  remainder  of  the  day  as  best  he 
could.  He  was  half  exasperated,  half  depressed  ;  he  had 
an  iusufl'erable  feeling  of  having  been  placed  in  the  wrong 
in  spite  of  his  excellent  cause.  Roderick  did  not  come 
home  to  lunch ;  but  of  this,  with  his  passion  for  brooding 


EODEPJCK  HUDSON.  339 

away  the  hours  on  far-off  mountain  sides,  he  had  almost 
made  a  habit.  Mrs.  Hudson  appeared  at  the  noonday- 
repast  with  a  face  which  showed  that  Roderick's  demand 
for  money  had  unsealed  the  fountains  of  her  distress. 
Little  Singleton  consumed  an  enormous  and  well-earned 
meal.  Mary  Garland,  Ptowland  observed,  had  not  con- 
tributed her  scanty  assistance  to  her  kinsman's  pursuit  of 
the  Princess  Casamassima  without  an  effort.  The  effort 
was  visible  in  her  pale  face  and  her  silence ;  she  looked  so 
ill  that  when  they  left  the  table  Rowland  felt  almost 
bound  to  remark  upon  it.  They  had  come  out  upon  the 
grass  in  front  of  the  inn. 

"I  have  a  headache,"  she  said.  And  then  suddenly, 
looking  about  at  the  menacing  sky  and  motionless  air, 
"  It's  this  horrible  day  !  " 

Rowland  that  afternoon  tried  to  write  a  letter  to  his 
cousin  Cecilia,  but  his  head  and  his  heart  were  alike  heavy, 
and  he  traced  upon  the  paper  but  a  single  line.  "  I  be- 
lieve there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too  reasonable.  But 
when  once  the  habit  is  formed,  what  is  one  to  do  ]  "  He 
had  occasion  to  use  his  keys  and  he  felt  for  them  in  his 
pockets;  they  were  missing,  and  he  remembered  that  he 
had  left  them  lying  on  the  hill-top  where  he  had  had  his 
talk  with  Roderick.  He  went  forth  in  search  of  them  and 
found  them  where  he  had  thrown  them.  He  flung  himself 
down  in  the  same  place  again ;  he  felt  indisposed  to  walk. 
He  was  conscious  that  his  mood  had  greatly  changed  since 
the  morning  ;  his  extraordinary  acute  sense  of  his  rights 
had  been  replaced  by  the  familiar  chronic  sense  of  his  duties. 
Only,  his  duties  now  seemed  impracticable ;  he  turned 
over  and  buried  his  face  in  his  arms.  He  lay  so  a.  long 
time,  thinking  of  many  things  ;  the  sum  of  them  all  was  that 
Roderick  had  beaten  him.  At  last  he  was  startled  by  an 
extraordinary  sound ;  it  took  him  a  moment  to  perceive 
that  it  was  a  portentous  growl  of  thunder.  He  aroused 
himself  and  saw  that  the  whole  face  of  the  sky  had  altered. 
The  clouds  that  had  hung  motionless  all  day  were  moving 
from  their  stations,  and  getting  into  position  for  a  battle. 
The  wind  was  rising,  the  turbid  vapours  were  growing 
dark  and  thick.  It  was  a  striking  spectacle,  but  Rowland 
judged  best  to  observe  it  briefly,  as  a  storm  was  evidently 
imminent.     He  took  his  way  down  to  the  inn  and  found 

Y  2 


340  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

Singleton  still  at  his  post,  profiting  by  the  last  of  the 
rapid -failing  light  to  finish  his  study,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  taking  rapid  notes  of  the  actual  condition  of  the  clouds, 

*'  We  are  going  to  have  a  most  interesting  storm  !  "  the 
little  painter  gleefully  cried.  "  I  should  like  awfully  to 
do  it." 

Kowland  adjured  him  to  pack  up  his  tools  and  decamp, 
and  repaired  to  the  house.  The  air  by  this  time  had  be- 
come tremendously  dark,  and  the  thunder  was  incessant 
and  deafening ;  in  the  midst  of  it  the  lightning  flashed  and 
vanished,  like  the  treble  shrilling  upon  the  bass.  The  inn- 
keeper and  his  servants  had  crowded  to  the  doorway  and 
were  looking  at  the  scene  with  faces  which  seemed  a  proof 
that  it  was  unprecedented.  As  Rowland  approached,  the 
group  divided  to  let  some  one  pass  within,  and  Mrs. 
Hudson  came  forth,  as  white  as  a  corpse  and  trembling 
in  every  limb. 

"  My  boy,  my  boy,  where  is  my  boy  ?  "  she  cried.  "  Mr. 
Mallet,  why  are  you  here  without  him  ?  Bring  him  to 
me  !  " 

"  Has  no  one  seen  Mr.  Hudson  1  "  Eow^land  asked  of  the 
others.     "  Has  he  not  returned  ?  " 

Each  one  shook  his  head  and  looked  grave,  and  Eowland 
attempted  to  reassure  Mrs.  Hudson  by  saying  that  of 
course  he  had  taken  refuge  in  a  chalet. 

"  Go  and  find  him,  go  and  find  him  !  "  she  cried,  insanely. 
"  Don't  stand  there  and  talk,  or  I  shall  drop  dead  !  "  It 
was  now  as  dark  as  evening,  and  Rowland  could  just  dis- 
tinguish the  figure  of  Singleton  scampering  homeward  with 
his  box  and  easel.  "And  where  is  Mary?  "  Mrs.  Hudson 
went  on  ;  "  what  in  mercy's  name  has  become  of  her?  Mr. 
Mallet,  why  did  you  ever  bring  us  here  %  " 

There  came  a  prodigious  flash  of  lightning,  and  the 
limitless  tumult  about  them  turned  clearer  than  mid- 
summer noonday.  The  brightness  lasted  long  enough  to 
enable  Rowland  to  see  a  woman's  figure  on  the  top  of  an 
eminence  near  the  house.  It  w^as  Mary  Garland,  question- 
ing the  lurid  darkness  for  Roderick.  Rowland  sprang  out 
to  interrupt  her  vigil,  but  in  a  moment  he  met  her  coming 
back.  He  seized  her  hand  and  hurried  her  to  the  house, 
where,  as  soon  as  she  stepped  into  the  covered  gallery,  Mrs. 
Hudson  fell  upon  her  with  frantic  lamentations. 


HODERICK  HUDSON.  341 

"Did  you  see  anythiDg — nothing V  she  cried.  "Tell 
Mr.  Mallet  he  must  go  and  find  him,  with  some  men,  some 
lights,  some  wrappings.     Go,  go,  go,  sir  !     In  mercy,  go  !  " 

Rowland  was  extremely  perturbed  by  the  poor  lady's 
vociferous  folly,  for  he  deemed  her  anxiety  superfluous.  He 
had  oifered  his  suggestion  with  sincerity ;  nothing  was 
more  probable  than  that  Roderick  had  found  shelter  in  a 
herdsman's  cabin.  These  were  numerous  on  the  neighbour- 
ing mountains,  and  the  storm  had  given  fair  w^arning  of 
its  approach,  Mary  stood  there  very  pale,  sa3ang  nothing, 
only  looking  at  him.  He  expected  that  she  would  try  to 
soothe  her  cousin.  "  Could  you  find  him  1  "  she  suddenly 
asked.     "  Would  it  be  of  use  ?  " 

The  question  seemed  to  him  a  flash  intenser  than  the 
lightning  that  was  raking  in  the  sky  before  them.  It 
shattered  his  dream  that  he  weighed  in  the  scale  !  But 
before  he  could  answer,  the  full  fury  of  the  storm  was  upon 
them ;  the  rain  descended  in  sounding  torrents.  Every  one 
fell  back  into  the  house.  There  had  been  no  time  to  light 
lamps,  and  in  the  little  uncarpeted  parlour,  in  the  unnatural 
darkness,  Rowland  felt  Mary's  hand  upon  his  arm.  For  a 
moment  it  had  an  eloquent  pressure ;  it  seemed  to  be  a 
retractation  of  her  senseless  challenge,  an  assurance  that 
she  believed,  for  Roderick,  what  he  believed.  But  never- 
theless, thought  Rowland,  the  cry  had  come,  her  heart  had 
spoken ;  her  first  impulse  had  been  to  sacrifice  him.  He 
had  been  uncertain  before ;  here  at  least  was  the  comfort 
of  certainty ! 

It  must  be  confessed  however  that  the  certainty  in  ques- 
tion did  little  to  enliven  the  gloom  of  that  formidable 
evening.  There  was  a  noisy  crowd  about  him  in  the  room 
— noisy  even  with  the  accompaniment  of  the  continual 
thunder-peals  ;  lodgers  and  servants,  chattering,  shuffling, 
bustling,  annoying  him  equally  by  making  too  light  of  the 
tempest  and  by  vociferating  their  alarm.  In  the  disorder 
it  was  some  time  before  a  lamp  was  lighted,  and  the  first 
thing  he  saw  as  it  was  swung  from  the  ceiling  was  the 
white  face  of  Mrs.  Hudson  who  was  being  carried  out  of 
the  room  in  a  swoon  by  two  stout  maid-servants,  with 
Mary  Garland  forcing  a  passage.  He  rendered  what  help 
he  could,  but  when  they  laid  the  poor  woman  on  her  bed 
Mary  motioned  him  away. 


342  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

"  T  think  you  make  lior  worse,"  she  said. 

Eowland  went  to  liis  own  room.  The  partitions  in  Swiss 
monntain-inns  are  thin,  and  from  time  to  time  he  heard  Mrs, 
Hudson'moaning  three  doors  off.  Considering  its  great  fury 
the  storm  took  long  to  expend  itself;  it  was  upwards  of 
three  hours  before  the  thunder  ceased.  But  even  then  the 
rain  continued  to  fall  heavily,  and  the  night,  which  had 
come  on,  was  impenetrably  black.  This  lasted  till  near  mid- 
night. Rowland  thought  of  Mary  Garland's  question  in  the 
porch,  but  he  thoiight  even  more  that,  although  the  fetid 
interior  of  a  high-nestling  chalet  may  offer  a  convenient 
refuge  from  an  Alpine  tempest,  there  was  no  possible 
music  in  the  universe  so  sweet  as  the  sound  of  Roderick's 
voice.  At  midnight,  through  his  dripping  window-pane, 
he  saw  a  star,  and  he  immediately  went  down  stairs  and 
out  into  the  gallery.  The  rain  had  ceased,  the  cloud- 
masses  were  dissevered  here  and  there,  and  several  stars 
were  visible.  In  a  few  minutes  he  heard  a  step  behind 
him,  and,  turning,  saw  Mary  Garland.  He  asked  about 
Mrs.  Hudson  and  learned  that  she  was  sleeping,  exhausted 
by  her  fruitless  lamentations.  Mary  kept  scanning  the 
darkness,  but  she  said  nothing  to  cast  doubt  on  Roderick's 
having  found  a  refuge.  Rowland  noticed  it.  "  This  also 
have  I  guaranteed!"  he  said  to  himself.  There  was 
something  that  Mary  wished  to  learn  and  a  question 
presently  revealed  it.  "  What  made  him  start  on  a  long 
walk  so  suddenly  1 "  she  asked.  "  I  saw  him  at  eleven 
o'clock,  and  then  he  meant  to  go  to  Engelberg  and 
sleep." 

"On  his  way  to  Interlakon  !  "  Rowland  said. 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  under  cover  of  the  darkness. 

"  We  had  some  talk,"  said  Rowland,  "  and  he  seemed, 
for  the  day,  to  have  given  up  Interlaken." 

"  Did  you  dissuade  him  ?  " 

"  Not  exactly.     We  discussed  another  question,  which 
for  the  time  superseded  his  plan." 

I\Iary  was   silent.      Then — "  May   I   ask  whether  your 
discussion  was  violent  ?  "  she  said. 

**  I  am  afraid  it  was  agreeable  to  neither  of  us." 

"And  Roderick  left  you  in — in  irritation?  " 

"  I  offered  him  my  companv  on  his  walk.     He  declined 
it." 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  343 

Mary  paced  slowly  to  the  end  of  the  gallery  and  then 
came  back.  "  Tf  he  had  gone  to  Engelberg,"  she  said,  "  he 
would  have  reached  the  hotel  before  the  storm  began." 

Eowland  felt  a  sudden  explosion  of  ferocity.  "Oh,  if 
you  like,"  he  cried,  "  he  can  start  for  Interlaken  as  soon  as 
he  comes  back  !  " 

But  she  did  not  even  notice  his  anger.  "  Will  he  come 
back  early  1  "  she  went  on. 

"  We  may  suppose  so." 

"  He  will  know  how  anxious  we  are  and  he  will  start 
with  the  first  light,"  said  Mary. 

Rowland  was  on  the  point  of  declaring  that  Roderick's 
readiness  to  throw  himself  into  the  feelings  of  others  made 
this  extremely  probable  ;  but  he  checked  himself  and  said 
simply,  "I  expect  him  at  sunrise." 

Mary  bent  her  eyes  once  more  upon  the  irresponsive  dark- 
ness, and  then  in  silence  went  into  the  house.  Rowland, 
it  must  be  averred,  in  spite  of  his  resolution  not  to  be 
nervous,  found  no  sleep  that  night.  When  the  early  dawn 
began  to  tremble  in  the  east  he  came  forth  again  into  the 
open  air.  The  storm  had  completely  cleared  the  atmosphere 
and  the  day  gave  promise  of  cloudless  splendour.  Rowland 
watched  the  early  sun-shafts  slowly  reaching  higher,  and 
remembered  that  if  Roderick  did  not  come  back  to  break- 
fast there  were  two  things  to  be  taken  into  account.  One 
was  the  heaviness  of  the  soil  on  the  mountain-sides,  saturated 
with  the  rain,  which  would  make  him  walk  slowly ;  the 
other  was  the  fact  that,  speaking  without  irony,  he  was 
not  remarkable  for  throwing  himself  into  the  sentiments 
of  others.  Breakfast  at  the  inn  was  early,  and  by  break- 
fast-time Roderick  had  not  reappeared.  Then  Rowland 
admitted  that  he  was  nervous.  Neither  Mrs.  Hudson  nor 
her  companion  had  left  their  apartment ;  Rowland  had  a 
mental  vision  of  the  two  women  sitting  there  looking  at 
each  other  and  listening;  he  had  no  desire  to  see  them 
more  closely.  There  were  a  couple  of  men  who  hung  about 
the  inn  as  guides  for  going  up  the  Titlis  ;  Rowland  sent 
each  of  them  forth  in  a  different  direction  to  ask  for  news 
of  Roderick  at  every  chalet  door  within  a  morning's  walk. 
Then  he  called  Sam  Singleton,  whose  peregrinations  had 
made  him  an  excellent  mountaineer  and  whose  zeal  and 
sympathy    were    now    unbounded,    and    the    two    started 


344  RODERICK  HUDSON. 

together  on  a  journey  of  research.  V>y  the  time  they  had 
lost  sight  of  the  inn  Eowland  was  obliged  to  confess  that 
decidedly  Roderick  had  had  time  to  come  back. 

He  wandered  about  for  several  hours,  but  he  found  only 
the  sunny  stillness  of  the  mountain-sides.  Before  long  he 
parted  company  with  Singleton,  who  to  his  suggestion  that 
separation  would  multiply  their  powers,  assented  with  a 
silent  frightened  look  which  reflected  too  vividly  his  own 
rapidly-dawning  thought.  The  day  was  magnificent ;  the 
sun  was  everywhere ;  the  storm  had  lashed  the  lower  slopes 
into  a  deeper  flush  of  autumnal  colour,  and  the  snow-peaks 
reared  themselves  against  the  near  horizon  in  shining 
blocks  and  incisive  peaks.  Rowland  made  his  way  to 
several  chalets,  but  most  of  them  were  empty.  He 
thumped  at  their  low  foul  doors  with  a  kind  of  nervous 
savage  anger ;  he  challenged  the  stupid  silence  to  tell  him 
something  about  his  friend.  Some  of  these  places  had 
evidently  not  been  open  for  months.  The  silence  every- 
where was  horrible  ;  it  seemed  to  mock  at  his  impatience 
and  to  be  a  conscious  symbol  of  calamity.  In  the  midst 
of  it,  at  the  door  of  one  of  the  cabins,  quite  alone,  sat  a 
hideous  cretin  who  grinned  at  Rowland  over  his  goitre 
when,  hardly  knowing  what  he  did,  he  questioned  him. 
This  creature's  family  was  scattered  on  the  mountain-sides  ; 
he  could  give  Rowland  no  help  to  find  them.  Rowland 
climbed  into  many  awkward  places,  and  skirted  intently 
and  peeringly  many  an  ugly  chasm  and  steep-dropping 
ledge.  But  the  sun,  as  I  have  said,  was  everywhere  ;  it 
illumined  the  deep  places  over  which,  not  knowing  where 
to  turn  next,  he  halted  and  lingered,  and  showed  him 
nothing  but  the  stony  Alpine  void — nothing  so  human 
even  as  death.  At  noon  he  paused  in  his  quest  and  sat 
down  on  a  stone  ;  the  conviction  was  pressing  upon  him 
that  the  worst  that  was  now  possible  was  true.  He 
stopped  looking;  he  was  afraid  to  go  on.  He  sat  there 
for  an  hour,  sick  to  the  depths  of  his  soul.  Without  his 
knowing  why,  several  things,  chiefly  trivial,  that  had  hap- 
pened during  the  last  two  years  and  that  he  had  quite 
forgotten,  became  vividly  present  to  his  mind.  He  was 
aroused  at  last  by  the  sound  of  a  stone  dislodged  near  by, 
which  rattled  down  the  mountain.  In  a  moment,  on  a 
steep   rocky   slope   opposite  to    him,    he    beheld   a   figure 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  345 

cautiously  def^cending — a  figure  which  was  not  Roderick. 
It  was  Singleton,  who  had  seen  him  and  began  to  beckon 
to  him. 

"  Come  down — come  down  !  "  cried  the  painter,  steadily 
making  his  own  way  down.  Rowland  saw  that  as  he 
moved,  and  even  as  he  selected  his  foothold  and  watched 
his  steps,  he  was  looking  at  something  at  the  bottom  of 
the  clilf.  This  was  a  great  rugged  wall  which  sloped  back- 
ward from  the  perpendicular,  and  the  descent,  thou^-h 
difficult,  was  with  care  sufficiently  practicable. 

'*  What  do  you  see  ?  "  cried  Rowland. 

Singleton  stopped,  looked  across  at  him  and  seemed  to 
hesitate  ;  then,  ''  Come  down — come  down  !  "  he  simply 
repeated. 

Rowland's  course  w^as  also  a  deep  descent,  and  he 
attacked  it  so  precipitately  that  he  afterwards  marvelled 
he  had  not  broken  his  neck.  It  was  a  ten  minutes'  head- 
long scramble.  Half-way  down  he  saw  something  that 
made  him  dizzy  ;  he  saw  what  Singleton  had  seen.  In  the 
gorge  below  them  a  vague  white  mass  lay  tumbled  upon 
the  stones.  He  let  himself  go,  blindly,  fiercely.  Singleton 
had  reached  the  rocky  bottom  of  the  ravine  before  him, 
and  had  bounded  forward  and  fallen  upon  his  knees. 
Rowland  overtook  him  and  his  own  legs  bent  under  him. 
The  thing  that  yesterday  was  his  friend  lay  before  him  as 
the  chance  of  the  last  breath  had  left  it,  and  out  of  it 
Roderick's  face  stared  upward  open-eyed  at  the  sky. 

He  had  fallen  from  a  great  height,  but  he  was  singularly 
little  disfigured.  The  rain  had  spent  its  torrents  upon 
him,  and  his  clothes  and  hair  were  as  wet  as  if  the  billows 
of  the  ocean  had  flung  him  upon  the  strand.  An  attempt 
to  move  him  would  show  some  hideous  fracture,  some 
horrible  physical  dishonour,  but  what  Rowland  saw  on 
first  looking  at  him  was  only  a  strangely  serene  expres- 
sion of  life.  The  eyes  were  those  of  a  dead  man,  but  in 
a  short  time,  when  Rowland  had  closed  them,  the  whole 
face  seemed  to  awake.  The  rain  had  washed  away  all 
blood  ;  it  was  as  if  Violence,  having  done  her  work,  had 
stolen  away  in  shame.  Roderick's  face  might  have  shamed 
her ;  it  looked  admirably  handsome. 

"  He  was  a  beautiful  fellow  !  "  said  Singleton. 

They  looked  up  through   their  horror  at  the  cliff  from 


346  llODERICK  HUDSON. 

which  he  had  apparently  fallen,  and  which  lifted  its 
blank  and  stony  face  above  him,  with  no  care  now  but  to 
drink  the  sunshine  on  which  his  eyes  were  closed  ;  and  then 
llowland  had  an  immense  outbreak  of  pity  and  anguish. 
At  last  they  spoke  of  carrying  him  back  to  the  inn. 
"  There  must  be  three  or  four  men,"  Ptowland  said,  "  and 
they  must  be  brought  here  quickly.  I  have  not  the  leajt 
idea  where  we  are." 

"  We  are  at  about  three  hours'  walk  from  home,"  said 
Singleton.     "  I  will  go  for  help  ;  I  can  find  my  way," 

"  Ptemember  whom  you  will  have  to  face  !  "  said  Ptowland. 

"  I  remember,"  the  excellent  fellow  answered.  "  There 
was  nothing  I  could  ever  do  for  him  in  life ;  I  will  do  w^iat 
I  can  now." 

He  went  off,  and  Powland  stayed  there  alone.  He 
watched  for  seven  long  hours,  and  his  vigil  was  for  ever 
memorable.  The  most  rational  of  men  was  for  an  hour 
the  most  passionate.  He  reviled  himself  with  transcendent 
bitterness,  he  accused  himself  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  he 
would  have  lain  down  there  in  Poderick's  place  to  unsay 
the  words  that  had  yesterday  driven  him  forth  on  his 
lonely  ramble.  Roderick  had  been  fond  of  saying  that 
there  are  such  things  as  necessary  follies,  and  Powland 
was  now  proving  it.  At  last  he  grew  almost  used  to  the 
dumb  exultation  of  the  cliff  above  him,  and  he  tried  to 
understand  w-hat  had  happened.  Not  that  it  helped  him  ; 
before  the  absoluteness  of  the  fact  one  hypothesis  after 
another  lost  its  interest.  Poderick's  passionate  walk  had 
carried  him  farther  and  higher  than  he  knew  ;  he  had 
outstayed  supposably  the  first  menace  of  the  storm  and 
perhaps  even  found  a  defiant  entertainment  in  watching  it. 
Perhaps  he  had  simply  lost  himself.  The  tempest  had 
overtaken  him  and  when  he  tried  to  return  it  was  too  late. 
He  had  attempted  to  descend  the  cliff  in  the  darkness,  he 
had  made  the  inevitable  slip,  and  whether  he  had  fallen 
fifty  feet  or  three  hundred  little  mattered  now.  The  con- 
dition of  his  body  indicated  the  shorter  fall.  Now  that 
all  was  over  Powland  understood  how  exclusively,  for  two 
years,  Poderick  had  filled  his  life.  His  occupation  was 
gone. 

Singleton  came  back  with  four  men — one  of  them  the 
landlord  of   the  inn.     They   had  formed   a   sort   of  rude 


RODERICK  HUDSON.  347 

bier  of  tlie  frame  of  a  chaise  ci  j^orteurs,  and  by  taking  a 
very  round-about  course  homeward  were  able  to  follow  a 
tolerably  level  path  and  carry  their  burden  with  a  certain 
decency.  To  Kowland  it  seemed  as  if  the  little  procession 
would  never  reach  the  inn  ;  but  as  they  drew  near  it  he 
would  have  given  his  right  hand  for  a  longer  delay.  The 
people  of  the  hotel  came  forward  to  meet  them  in  a  little 
silent  solemn  convoy.  In  the  doorway,  clinging  together, 
appeared  the  two  bereaved  women.  Mrs.  Hudson  tottered 
forward  with  outstretched  hands  and  the  expression  of  a 
blind  person  ;  but  before  she  reached  her  son  Mary  Garland 
had  rushed  past  her  and,  in  the  face  of  the  staring,  pitying, 
awe-stricken  crowd,  had  flung  herself  with  the  magnificent 
movement  of  one  whose  rights  were  supreme  and  with  a 
loud  tremendous  cry,  upon  the  senseless  vestige  of  her 
love. 

That  cry  still  lives  in  Rowland's  ears.  It  interposes 
persistently  against  the  reflection  that  when  he  sometimes 
— very  rarely — sees  her,  she  is  unreservedly  kind  to  him  ; 
against  the  memory  that  during  the  dreary  journey  back 
to  America,  made  of  course  with  his  assistance,  there  was 
a  great  frankness  in  her  gratitude,  a  great  gratitude  in  her 
frankness.  Mary  Garland  lives  with  Mrs.  Hudson,  at 
Northampton,  where  Rowland  visits  his  cousin  Cecilia 
more  frequently  than  of  old.  When  he  calls  upon  Mary 
he  never  sees  Mrs.  Hudson.  Cecilia,  who  having  her 
shrewd  impression  that  he  comes  to  see  the  young  lady 
at  the  other  house  as  much  as  to  see  herself,  does  not 
feel  obliged  to  seem  unduly  flattered,  calls  him  whenever 
he  reappears  the  most  restless  of  mortals.  But  he  always 
says  to  her  in  answer,  "No,  I  assure  you  I  am  the  most 
patient  !  " 

THE    END.  '  -' ' 


CLAY.    SONS.    AND   TAYI.OR, 
BKEAD  fcTHKET    IIII.L 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


JAN 


12  19671  » 


RFCEiVED 


0Q_ 


JAN  1 6  b/  -4  PM 


LOAN  DEPT. 


9-^ 


^*- 


w 


I    ii 


^^^i>^  A<v^'^ 


« 


,^oWtEm 


gEBl7lB70O'» 


isajpw 


H!ECE;Vt£U 


MAft3l70-}ZP|V| 
!     JECDLD   APR  5 


'72-10PM,S  1 


LD  21A-60m-7,'66 


General  Library 
University  of  California 

Berkelcv 


